MEMOIRS OF FANNY HILL

By John Cleland

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 LETTER THE FIRST
I sit down to give you an undeniable proof of my considering
your desires as indispensable orders. Ungracious then as the
task may be, I shall recall to view those scandalous stages of my
life, out of which I emerged, at length, to the enjoyment of every
blessing in the power of love, health and fortune to bestow;
whilst yet in the flower of youth, and not too late to employ the
leisure afforded me by great ease and affluence, to cultivate an
understanding, naturally not a despicable one, and which had,
even amidst the whirl of loose pleasures I had been tossed in,
exerted more observation on the characters and manners of the
world than what is common to those of my unhappy profession,
who, looking on all though or reflection as their capital enemy,
keep it at as great a distance as they can, or destroy it without
mercy.
Hating, as I mortally do, all long unnecessary prefaces, I shall
give you good quarter in this, and use no farther apology, than
to prepare you for seeing the loose part of my life, written with
the same liberty that I led it.
Truth! stark, naked truth, is the word; and I will not so much
as take the pains to bestow the strip of a gauze wrapper on it,
but paint situations such as they actually rose to me in nature,
careless of violating those laws of decency that were never made
for such unreserved intimacies as ours; and you have too much
sense, too much knowledge of the originals, to sniff prudishly
and out of character at the pictures of them. The greatest men,
those of the first and most leading taste, will not scruple
adorning their private closets with nudities, though, in
compliance with vulgar prejudices, they may not think them
decent decorations of the staircase, or salon.
This, and enough, premised, I go souse into my personal
history. My maiden name was Frances Hill. I was born at a
small village near Liverpool, in Lancashire, of parents extremely
poor, and, I piously believe, extremely honest.
My father, who had received a maim on his limbs, that
disabled him from following the more laborious branches of
country drudgery, got, by making nets, a scanty subsistence,
which was not much enlarged by my mother's keeping a little
day-school for the girls in her neighborhood. They had had
several children; but none lived to any age except myself, who
had received from nature a constitution perfectly healthy.
My education, till past fourteen, was no better than very
vulgar: reading, or rather spelling, an illegible scrawl, and a little
ordinary plain work, composed the whole system of it; and then
all my foundation in virtue was no other than a total ignorance
of vice, and the shy timidity general to our sex, in the tender age
of life, when objects alarm or frighten more by their novelty than
anything else. But then, this is a fear too often cured at the
expense of innocence, when Miss, by degrees, begins no longer
to look on a man as a creature of prey that will eat her.
My poor mother had divided her time so entirely between her
scholars and her little domestic cares, that she had spared very
little to my instruction, having, from her own innocence from all
ill, no hint or thought of guarding me against any.
I was now entering on my fifteenth year, when the worst of
ills befell me in the loss of my fond, tender parents, who were
both carried off by the small-pox, within a few days of each
other; my father dying first, and thereby by hastening the death
of my mother: so that I was now left an unhappy friendless
orphan (for my father's coming to settle there, was accidental, he
being originally a Kentisrman). That cruel distemper which had
proved so fatal to them, had indeed seized me, but with such
mild and favourable symptoms, that I was presently out of
danger, and what then I did not know the value of, was entirely
unmarked I skip over here an account of the natural grief and
affliction which I felt on this melancholy occasion. A little time,
and the giddiness of that age, dissipated too soon my reflections
on that irreparable loss; but nothing contributed more to
reconcile me to it, than the notions that were immediately put
into my head, of going to London, and looking out for a service,
in which I was promised all assistance and advice from one
Esther Davis, a young woman that had beer down to see her
friends, and who, after the stay of a few days, was returned to
her place.
As I had now nobody left alive in the village, who had
concerned enough about what should become of me, to start any
objections to this scheme, and the woman who took care of me
after my parents' death, rather encouraged me to pursue it, I
soon came to a resolution of making this launch into the wide
world, by repairing to London, in order to seek my fortune, a
phrase which, by the bye, has ruined more adventurers of both
sexes, from the country, than ever it made or advanced.
Nor did Esther Davis a little comfort and inspirit me to
venture with her, by piquing my childish curiosity with the fine
sights that were to be seen in London: the Tombs, the Lions, the
King, the Royal Family, the fine Plays and Operas, and, in short,
all the diversions which fell within her sphere of life to come at;
the detail of all which perfectly turned the little head of me.
Nor can I remember, without laughing, the innocent
admiration, not without a spice of envy, with which we poor
girls, whose church-going clothes did not rise above dowlas
shifts and stuff gowns, beplaced with silver: all which we
imagined grew in London, and entered for a great deal into my
determination of trying to come in for my share of them.
The idea however of having the company of a towns-woman
with her, was the trivial, and all the motives that engaged Esther
to take charge of me during my journey to town, where she told
me, after the manner and style, "as how several maids out of the
country had made themselves and all their kind for ever: that by
preserving their virtue, some had taken so with their masters,
that they had married them, and kept them coaches, and lived
vastly grand and happy; and some, may-hap, came to be
Duchesses; luck was all, and why not I, as well as another?";
with other almanacs to this purpose, which set me a tip-toe to
begin this promising journey, and to leave a place which, though
my native one, contained no relations that I had reason to
regret, and was grown insupportable to me, from the change of
the tenderest usage into a cold air of charity, with which I was
entertained, even at the only friend's house that I had the least
expectation of care and protection from. She was, however, so
just to me, as to manage the turning into money the little
matters that remained to me after the debts and burial charges
were allowed for, and, at my departure, put my whole fortune
into my hands; which consisted of a very slender wardrobe,
packed up in a very portable box, and eight guineas, with
seventeen shillings in silver, stowed in a spring-pouch, which
was a greater treasure than I ever had seen together, and which I
could not conceive there was a possibility of running out; and
indeed, I was so entirely taken up with the joy of seeing myself
mistress of such an immence sum, that I gave very little
attention to a world of good advice which was given me with it.
Places, then, being taken for Esther and me in the Chester
waggon, I pass over a very immaterial scene of leave-taking, at
which I droped a few tears betwixt grief and joy; and, for the
same reasons of insignificance, skip over all that happened to me
on the road, such as the waggoner's looking liquorish on me, the
schemes laid for me by some of the passengers, which were
defeated by the valiance of my guardian Esther; who, to do her
justice, took a motherly care of me, at the same time that she
taxed me for the protection by making me bear all travelling
charges, which I defrayed with the unmost cheerfulness, and
thought myself much obliged to her into the bargain.
She took indeed great care that we were not overrated, or
imposed on, as well as of managing as frugally as possible;
expensiveness was not her vice.
 It was pretty late in a summer evening when we reached the
town, in our slow conveyance, though drawn by six at length. As
we passed through the greatest streets that led to our inn, the
noise, of the coaches, the hurry, the crowds of foot passengers,
in short, the new scenery of the shops and houses, at once
pleased and amazed me.
But guess at my mortification and surprise when we came to
the inn, and our things were landed and delivered to us, when
my fellow traveller and protectress, Esther Davis, who had used
me with the utmost tenderness during the journey, and prepared
me by no preceedings signs for the stunning blow I was to
receive, when I say, my only dependence and friend, in this
strange place, all of a sudden assumed a strange and cool air
towards me, as if she dreaded my becoming a burden to her.
Instead, then, of proffering me the continuance of her
assistance and good offices, which I relied upon, and never more
wanted, she thought herself, it seems, abundantly acquitted of
her engagements to me, by having brought me safe to my
journey's end, and seeing nothing in her procedure towards me
but what natural and in order, began to embrace me by the way
of taking leave, whilst I was so confounded, so struck, that I had
not spirit or sense enough so much as to mention my hopes or
expectations from her experience, and knowledge of the place
she had brought me to.
Whilst I stood thus stupid and mute, which she doubtless
attributed to nothing more than a concern at parting, this idea
procured me perhaps a slight alleviation of it, in the following
harangue: "That now we were got safe to London, and that she
was obliged to go to her place, she advised me by all means to
get into one as soon as possible; that I need not fear getting one;
there were more places than parish-churches; that she advised
me to go to an intelligence office; that if she heard of any thing
stirring, she would find me out and let me know; that in the
meantime, I should take a private lodging, and acquaint her
where to send to me; that she wished me good luck, and hoped I
should always have the grace to keep myself honest, and not
bringing a disgrace on my parentage." With this; she took her
leave of me, and left me, as it were, on my own hands, full as
lightly as I had been put into hers.
Left thus alone, absolutely destitute and friendless I began
then to feel most bitterly the severity of this separation, the
scene of which had passed in a little room in the inn; and no
sooner was her back turned, but the affliction I felt at my
helpless strange circumstances, burst out into a flood of tears,
which infinitely relieved the oppression of my heart; though I
still remained stupified, and most perfectly perplexed how to
dispose of myself.
One of the waiters coming in, added yet more to my
uncertainty, by asking me, in a short way, if I called for
anything? to which I replied innocently: "No." But I wished him
to tell me where I might get a lodging for that night. He said he
would go and speak to his mistress, who accordingly came, and
told me drily, without entering in the least into the distress she
saw me in, that I might have a bed for a shilling, and that, as
she supposed I had some friends in town (there I fetched a deep
sigh in vain!), I might provide for myself in the morning.
It is incredible what trifling consolations the human mind will
seize in its greatest afflictions. The assurance of nothing more
than a bed to lie on that night, calmed my agonies; and being
ashamed to acquaint the mistress of the inn that I had no friends
to apply to in town, I proposed to myself to proceed, the very
next morning, to an intelligence office, to which I was furnished
with written directions on the back of a ballad, Esther had given
me. There I counted on getting information of any place that
such a country girl as I might be fit for, and where I could get
into any sort of being, before my little stock should be
consumed; and as to a character, Esther had often repeated to
me, that I might depend on her managing me one; nor, however
affected I was at her leaving me thus, did I entirely cease to rely
on her, as I began to think, good-naturedly, that her procedure
was all in course, and that is was only my ignorance of life that
had made me take it in the light I at first did.
 Accordingly, the next morning I dressed myself as clean and as
neat as my rustic wardrobe would permit me; and having left my
box, with special recommendation, with the landlady, I ventured
out by myself, and without any more difficulty than can be
supposed of a young country girl, barely fifteen, and to whom
every sign or shop was a gazing trap, I got to the wished for
intelligence office.
It was kept by an elderly woman, who sat at the receipt of
custom, with a book before her in great form and order, and
several scrolls made out, of directions for places.
I made up then to this important personage, without lifting up
my eyes or observing any of the people round me, who were
attending there on the same errand as myself, and dropping her
curtsies nine deep, just made a shift to stammer out my business
to her.
Madam heard me out, with all the gravity and brow of a petty
minister of State, and seeing at one glance over my figure what I
was, made me no answer, but to ask me the preliminary shilling,
on receipt of which she told me places for women too slight built
for hard work: but that she would look over her book, and see
what was to be done for me, desiring me to stay a little, till she
had dispatched some other customers.
On this I drew back a little, most heartily mortified at a
declaration which carried with it a killing uncertainly, that my
circumstances could not well endure.
Presently, assuming more courage, and seeking some diversion
from my uneasy thoughts, I ventured to lift up my head a little,
and sent my eyes on a course round the room, where they met
full tilt with those of a lady (for such my extreme innocence
pronounced her) sitting in a corner of the room, dressed in a
velvet mantle (in the midst of summer), with her bonnet off;
squat, fat, red-faced, and at least fifty.
She looked as if she would devour me with her eyes, staring at
me from head to foot, without the least regard to the confusion
and blushes her eyeing me so fixedly put me to, and which were
to her, no doubt, the strongest recommendation and marks of
my being fit for her purpose. After a little time, in which my air,
person and whole figure had undergone a strict examination,
which I had, on my part, tried to render favourable to me, by
primming, drawing up my neck, and setting my best looks, she
advanced and spoke to me with the greatest demureness:
"Sweet-heart, do you want a place?
"Yes, and please you," (with a curtsey down to the ground).
Upon this she acquainted me she was actually come to the
office herself, to look out for a servant; that she believed I might
do, with a little of her instruction; that she could take my very
looks for a sufficient character; that London was a very wicked,
vile, place; that she hoped I would be tractable, and keep out of
bad company; in short, she said all to me that an old
experienced practitioner in town could think of, and which was
much more than was necessary to take in an artless
inexperienced country maid, who was even afraid of becoming a
wanderer about the streets, and therefore gladly jumped at the
first offer of a shelter, especially from so grave and matron-like a
lady, for such my flattering fancy assured me this new mistress
of mine was, I being actually hired under the nose of the good
woman that kept the office, whose shrewed smiles and shrugs I
could not help observing, and innocently interpreted them as
marks of being pleased at my getting into place so soon: but, as I
afterwards came to know, these Beldams understood one
another very well, and this was a market where Mrs. Brown, my
mistress, frequently attended, on the watch for any fresh goods
that might offer there, for the use of her customers, and her own
profit.
Madam was, however, so well pleased with her bargain that
fearing I presume, lest better advice or some accident might
occasion my slipping through her fingers, she would officiously
take me in a coach to my inn, where, calling herself for my box,
it was, I being present, delivered without the least scruple or
explanation as to where I was going.
 This being over, she bid the coachman drive to a shop in St.
Paul's Churchyard, where she bought a pair of gloves, which she
gave me, and thence renewed her directions to the coachman to
drive to her house in ——— street, who accordingly landed us at
the door, after I had been cheered up and entertained by the
way with the most plausible flams, without one syllable from
which I could conclude anything but that I was, by the greatest
luck, fallen into the hands of kindest mistress, not to say friend,
that the vast world could afford; and accordingly I entered her
doors with most complete confidence and exultation, promising,
myself that, as soon as I could be a little settled, I would
acquaint Esther Davis with my rare good fortune.
You may be sure the good opinion of my place was not
lessened by the appearance of a very handsome back parlor, into
which I was led and which seemed to me magnificently
furnished, who had never seen better rooms than the ordinary
ones in inns upon the road. There were two gilt pier-glasses, and
a buffet, on which a few pieces of plate, set out to the most
shew, dazzled, and altogether persuaded me that I must be got
into a very reputable family.
Here my mistress first began her part, with telling me that I
must have good spirits, and learn to be free with her; that she
had not taken me to be a common servant, to do domestic
drudgery, but to be a kind of companion to her; and that if I
would be a good girl, she would do more than twenty mothers
for me; to all which I answered only by the profoundest and the
awkwardest curtsies, and a few monosyllables, such as "'yes! no!
to be sure!"
Presently my mistress touched the bell, and in came a
strapping maid-servant, who had let us in. "Here, Martha," said
Mrs. Brown, "I have just hired this young woman to look after
my linen; so step up and show her her chamber; and I charge
you to use her with as much respect as you would myself, for I
have taken a prodigious liking to her, and I do not know what I
shall do for her."
 Martha, who was an arch-jade, and, being used to this decoy,
had her cue perfect, made me a kind of half curtsy, and asked
me to walk up with her; and accordingly showed me a neat
room, two pair of stairs backwards, in which there was a
handsome bed, where Martha told me I was to lie with a young
gentlewoman, a cousin of my mistress, who she was sure would
be vastly good to me. Then she ran out into such affected
encomiums on her good mistress! her sweet mistress! and how
happy I was to light upon her! and that I could not have bespoke
a better; with other the like gross stuff, such as would itself have
started suspicions in any but such an unpractised simpleton,
who was perfectly new to life, and who took every word she said
in the very sense she laid out for me to take it; but she readily
saw what a penetration she had to deal with, and measured me
very rightly in her manner of whistling to me, so as to make me
pleased with my cage, and blind to the wires.
In the midst of these false explanations of the nature of my
future service, we were rung for down again, and I was
reintroduced into the same parlour, where there was a table laid
with three covers; and my mistress had now got with her one of
her favourite girls, a notable manager of her house, and whose
business it was to prepare and break such young fillies as I was
to the mounting block; and she was accordingly, in that view,
alloted me for a bed-fellow, and, to give her the more authority,
she had the title of cousin conferred on her by the venerable
president of this college.
Here I underwent a second survey, which ended in the full
approbation of Mrs. Phoebe Ayres, the name of my tutoress
elect, to whose care and instruction I was affectionately
recommended.
Dinner was now set on table, and in pursuance of treating me
as a companion, Mrs. Brown, with a tone to cut off all dispute,
soon over-ruled my most humble and most confused
protestations against sitting down with her Ladyship, which my
very short breeding just suggested to me could not be right, or in
the order of things.
 At table, the conversation was chiefly kept up by the two
madams and carried on in double meaning expressions,
interrupted every now and then by kind assurances to me, all
tending to confirm and fix my satisfaction with my present
condition: augment it they could not, so very a novice was I
then.
It was here agreed that I should keep myself up and out of
sight for a few days, till such clothes could be procured for me
as were fit for the character I was to appear in, of my mistress's
companion, observing withal, that on the first impressions of my
figure much might depend; and, as they rightly judged, the
prospect of exchanging my country clothes for London finery,
made the clause of confinement digest perfectly well with me.
But the truth was, Mrs. Brown did not care that I should be seen
or talked to by any, either of her customers, or her Does (as they
called the girls provided for them), till she secured a good
market for my maidenhead, which I had at least all the
appearances of having brought into her Ladyship's service.
To slip over minutes of no importance to the main of my
story, I pass the interval to bed time, in which I was more and
more pleased with the views that opened to me, of an easy
service under these good people; and after supper being shewed
up to bed, Miss Phoebe, who observed a kind of reluctance in
me to strip and go to bed, in my shift, before her, now the maid
was withdrawn, came up to me, and beginning with unpinning
my handkerchief and gown, soon encouraged me to go on with
undressing myself; and, blushing at now seeing myself naked to
my shift, I hurried to get under the bed-clothes out of sight.
Phoebe laughed and was not long before she placed herself by
my side. She was about five and twenty, by her most suspicious
account, in which, according to all appearances, she must have
sunk at least ten good years; allowance, too, being made for the
havoc which a long course of hackneyship and hot waters must
have made of her constitution, and which had already brought
on, upon the spur, that stale stage in which those of her
profession are reduced to think of showing company, instead of
seeing it.
No sooner then was this precious substitute of my mistress
laid down, but she, who was never out of her way when any
occasion of lewdness presented itself, turned to me, embraced
and kissed me with great eagerness. This was new, this was odd;
but imputing it to nothing but pure kindness, which, for ought I
knew, it might be the London way to express in that manner, I
was determined not to be behind-hand with her, and returned
her the kiss and embrace, with all the fervour that perfect
innocence knew.
Encouraged by this, her hands became extremely free, and
wandered over my whole body, with touches, squeezes,
pressures, that rather warmed and surprised me with their
novelty, than they either shocked or alarmed me.
The flattering praises she intermingled with these invasions,
contributed also not a little to bribe my passiveness; and,
knowing no ill, I feared none, especially from one who had
prevented all doubts of her womanhood, by conducting my
hands to a pair of breasts that hung loosely down, in a size and
volume that full sufficiently distinguished her sex, to me at least,
who had never made any other comparison.
I lay then all tame and passive as she could wish, whilst her
freedom raised no other emotion but those of a strange, and, till
then, unfelt pleasure. Every part of me was open and exposed to
the licentious courses of her hands, which, like a lambent fire,
ran over my whole body, and thawed all coldness as they went.
My breasts, if it is not too bold a figure to call so two hard,
firm, rising hillocks, that just began to shew themselves, or
signify anything to the touch, employed and amused her hands
awhile, till, slipping down lower, over a smooth track, she could
just feel the soft silky down that had but a few months before
put forth and garnished the mount-pleasant of those parts, and
promised to spread a grateful shelter over the sweet seat of the
most exquisite sensation, and which had been, till that instant,
the seat of the most insensible innocence. Her fingers played and
strove to twine in the young tendrils of that moss, which nature
has contrived at once for use and ornament.
But, not contented with these outer posts, she now attempts
the main spot, and began to twitch, to insinuate, and at length
to force an introduction of a finger into the quick itself, in such
a manner, that had she not proceeded by insensible gradations
that inflamed me beyond the power of modesty to oppose its
resistance to their progress, I should have jumped out of bed and
cried for help against such strange assaults.
Instead of which, her lascivious touches had lighted up a new
fire that wantoned through all my veins, but fixed with violence
in that center appointed them by nature, where the first strange
hands were now busied in feeling, squeezing, compressing the
lips, then opening them again, with a finger between, till an
"Oh!" expressed her hurting me, where the narrowness of the
unbroken passage refused it entrance to any depth.
In the meantime, the extension of my limbs, languid
stretching, sighs, short heavings, all conspired to as-ure that
experienced wanton that I was more pleased than offended at
her proceedings, which she seasoned with repeated kisses and
exclamations, such as "Oh! what a charming creature thou art!
What a happy man will he be that first makes a woman of you!
Oh! that I were a man for your sake!" with the like broken
expressions, interrupted by kisses as fierce and salacious as ever
I received from the other sex.
For my part, I was transported, confused, and out of myself;
feelings so new were too much for me. My heated and alarmed
senses were in a tumult that robbed me of all liberty of thought;
tears of pleasure gushed from my eyes, and somewhat assuaged
the fire that raged all over me.
Phoebe, herself, the hackneyed, thorough-bred Phoebe, to
whom all modes and devices of pleasure were known and
familiar, found, it seems, in this exercise her those arbitrary
tastes, for which there is no accounting. Not that she hated men,
or did not even prefer them to her own sex; but when she met
with such occasions as this was, a satiety of enjoyments in the
common road, perhaps, too a great secret bias, inclined her to
make the most of pleasure, wherever she could find it, without
distinction of sexes. In this view, now well assured that she had,
by her touches, sufficiently inflamed me for her purpose, she
rolled down the bed clothes gently, and I saw myself stretched
naked, my shift being turned up to my neck, whilst I had no
power or sense to oppose it. Even my growing blushes expressed
more desire than modesty, whilst the candle, left (to be sure not
undesignedly) burning, threw a full light on my whole body.
"No!" says Phoebe, "you must not, my sweet girl, think to hide
all these treasures from me. My sight must be feasted as my
touch. I must devour with my eyes this springing bosom. Suffer
me to kiss it. I have not seen it enough. Let me kiss it once
more. What firm, smooth, white flesh is here! How delicately
shaped! Then this delicious down! Oh! let me view the small,
dear, tender cleft! This is too much, I cannot bear it! I must! I
must!" Here she took my hand, and in a transport carried it
where you will easily guess. But what a difference in the state of
the same thing! A spreading thicket of bushy curls marked the
full grown, complete woman. Then the cavity to which she
guided my hand easily received it; and as soon as she felt it
within her, she moved herself to and fro, with so rapid a
friction, that I presently withdrew it, wet and clammy, when
instantly Phoebe grew more composed, after two or three sighs,
and heart-fetched Oh's! and giving me a kiss that seemed to
exhale her soul through her lips, she replaced the bed-clothes
over us. What pleasure she had found I will not say; but this I
know, that the first sparks of kindling nature, the first ideas of
pollution, were caught by me that night; and that the
acquaintance and communication with the bad of our sex, is
often as fatal to innocence as all the seductions of the other. But
to go on. When Phoebe was restored to that calm, which I was
far from the enjoyment of myself, she artfully sounded me on all
the points necessary to govern the designs of my virtuous
mistress on me, and by my answers, drawn from pure
undissembled nature, she had no reason but to promise herself
all imaginable success, so far as it depended on my ignorance,
easiness and warmth of constitution.
After a sufficient length of dialogue, my bedfellow left me to
my rest, and I fell asleep, through pure weariness, from the
violent emotions I had been led into, when nature which had
been too warmly stirred and fermented to subside without
allaying by some means or other relieved me by one of those
luscious dreams, the transports of which are scarce inferior to
those of waking real action.
In the morning I awoke about ten, perfectly gay and refreshed.
Phoebe was up before me, and asked me in the kindest manner
how I did, how I had rested, and if I was ready for breakfast?
carefully, at the same time, avoiding to increase the confusion
she saw I was in, at looking her in the face, by any hint of the
night's bed scene. I told her if she pleased I would get up, and
begin any work she would be pleased to set me about. She
smiled; presently the maid brought in the tea equipage, and I
just huddled my clothes on, when in waddled my mistress. I
expected no less than to be told of, if not chid for, my late
rising, when I was most agreeably disappointed by her
compliments on my pure and fresh looks. I was "a bud of
beauty" (this was her style), "and how vastly all the fine men
would admire me!" to all which my answers did not, I can assure
you, wrong my breeding; they were as simple and silly as they
could wish, and, no doubt, flattered them infinitely more than
had they proved me enlightened by education and a knowledge
of the world.
We breakfasted, and the tea things were scarce removed, when
in were brought two bundles of linen and wearing apparel: in
short, all the necessaries for rigging me out, as they termed it,
completely.
Imagine to yourself, Madam, how my little coquet heart
fluttered with joy at the sight of a white lutestring, flowered
with silver, scoured indeed, but passed on me for spick and span
new, a Brussels lace cap, braited shoes, and the rest in
proportion, all second-hand finery, and procured instantly for
the occasion, by the diligence and industry of the good Mrs.
Brown, who had already a chapman for me in the house, before
whom my charms were to pass in review; for he had not only, in
course, insisted on a previous sight of the premises, but also on
immediate surrendering to him, in case of his agreeing for me;
concluding very wisely, that such a place as I was in, was of the
hottest to trust the keeping of such a perishable commodity in,
as a maidenhead.
The care of dressing and tricking me out for the market, was
then left to Phoebe, who acquitted herself, if not well, at least
perfectly to the satisfaction of everything but my impatience of
seeing myself dressed. When it was over, and I viewed myself in
the glass, I was no doubt, too natural, too artless, to hide my
childish joy at the change: a change, in the real truth, for much
the worse, since I must have much better become the neat easy
simplicity of my rustic dress than the awkward, untoward,
tawdry finery that I could not conceal my strangeness to.
Phoebe's compliments, however, in which her own share in
dressing me was not forgot, did not a little confirm me in the
first notions I had ever entertained concerning my person;
which, be it said without vanity, was then tolerable to justify a
taste for me, and of which it may not be out of place here to
sketch you an unflattered picture.
I was tall, yet not too tall for my age, which, as I before
remarked, was barely turned of fifteen; my shape perfectly
straight, thin waisted, and light and free without owing anything
to stays; my hair was a glossy auburn, and as soft as silk,
flowing down my neck in natural curls, and did not a little to set
off the whiteness of a smooth skin; my face was rather too
ruddy, though its features were delicate, and the shape was a
roundish oval, except where a pit on my chin had far from a
disagreeable effect; my eyes were as black as can be imagined,
and rather languishing than sparkling, except on certain
occasions, when I have been told they struck fire fast enough;
my teeth, which I ever carefully preserved, were small, even and
white; my bosom was finely raised, and one might then discern
rather the promise than the actual growth of the round, firm
breast, that in a little time made that promise good. In short, all
the points of beauty that are most universally in request, I had,
or at least my vanity forbid me to appeal from the decision of
our sovereign judges the men, who all, that I ever knew at last,
gave it thus highly in my favour; and I met with, even in my
own sex, some that were above denying me that justice, whilst
others praised me yet more unsuspectedly, by endeavouring to
detract from me, in points of person and figure that I obviously
excelled in. This is, I own, too strong of self praise; but I should
be ungrateful to nature, and to a form to which I owe such
singular blessings of pleasure and fortune, were I to suppress,
through an affectation of modesty, the mention of such valuable
gifts.
Well then, dressed I was, and little did it then enter into my
head that all this gay attire was no more than decking the victim
out for sacrifice, whilst I innocently attributed all to mere
friendship and kindness in the sweet good Mrs. Brown; who, I
was forgetting to mention, had, under pretence of keeping my
money safe, got from me, without the least hesitation, the
driblet (so I now call it) which remained to me after the expenses
of my journey.
After some little time most agreebly spent before the glass, in
scarce self-admiration, since my new dress had by much the
greatest share in it, I was sent for down to the parlour, where
the old lady saluted me, and wished me joy of my new clothes,
which she was not ashamed to say, fitted me as if I had worn
nothing but the finest all my life-time; but what was it she could
not see me silly enough to swallow? At the same time, she
presented me to another cousin of her own creation, an elderly
gentleman, who got up, at my entry into the room, and on my
dropping a curtsy to him, saluted me, and seemed a little
affronted that I had only presented my cheek to him: a mistake,
which, if one, he immediately corrected, by gluing his lips to
mine, with an ardour which his figure had not at all disposed me
to thank him for: his figure, I say, than which nothing could be
more shocking or detestable: for ugly and disagreeable were
terms too gentle to convey a just idea of it.
Imagine to yourself, a man rather past threescore, short and
ill-made, with a yellow cadaverous hue, great goggle eyes, that
stared as if he was strangled; an out-mouth from two more
properly tusks than teeth, livid lips, and breath like a Jake's:
then he had a peculiar ghastliness in his grin, that made him
perfectly frightful, if not dangerous to women with child; yet,
made as he was thus in mock of man, he was so blind to his
own staring deformities, as to think himself born to please, and
that no woman could see him with impunity: in consequence of
which idea, he had lavished great sums on such wretches as
could gain upon themselves to pretend love to his person, whilst
to those who had not art or patience to dissemble the horror it
inspired, he behaved even brutally. Impotence, more than
necessity, made him seek in variety, the provocative that was
wanting to raise him to the pitch of enjoyment, which he too
often saw himself baulked of, by the failure of his powers: and
this always threw him into a fit of rage, which he wreaked, as
far as he durst, on the innocent objects of his fit of momentary
desire.
This then was the master to which my conscientious
benefactress, who had long been his purveyor in this way, had
doomed me, and sent for me down purposely for his
examination. Accordingly she made me stand up before him,
turned me round, unpinned my handkerchief, remarked to him
the rise and fall, the turn and whiteness of a bosom just
beginning to fill; then made me walk, and took even a handle
from the rusticity of my charms: in short, she omitted no point
of jockeyship; to which he only answered by gracious nods of
approbation, whilst he looked goats and monkeys at me: for I
sometimes stole a corner glance at him, and encountering his
fiery, eager stare, looked another way from pure horror and
affright, which he, characteristically, attributed to nothing more
than maiden modesty, or at least the affectation of it.
 However, I was soon dismissed, and reconducted to my room
by Phoebe, who stuck close to me, not leaving me alone, and at
leisure to make such reflections as might naturally rise to any
one, not an idiot, on such a scene as I had just gone through;
but to my shame be it confessed, that just was my invincible
stupidity, or rather portentous innocence, that I did not yet open
my eyes to Mrs. Brown's designs, and saw nothing in this titular
cousin of hers but a shockingly hideous person, which did not at
all concern me, unless that my gratitude for my benefactress
made me extend my respect to all her cousinhood.
Phoebe, however, began to sift the state and pulses of my
heart toward this monster, asking me how I should approve of
such a fine gentelman for a husband. (Fine gentleman, I suppose
she called him, from his being daubed with lace.) I answered her
very naturally, that I had no thoughts of a husband, but that if I
was to choose one, it should be among my own degree, sure! so
much had my aversion to that wretch's hideous figure indisposed
me to all "fine gentlemen," and confounded my ideas, as if those
of that rank had been necessarily cast in the same mould that he
was. But Phoebe was not to be put off so, but went on with her
endeavours to melt and soften me for the purposes of my
reception into that hospitable house: and whilst she talked of the
sex in general, she had no reason to despair of a compliance,
which more than one reason showed her would be easily enough
obtained of me; but then she had too much experience not to
discover that my particular fixed aversion to that frightful cousin
would be a block not so readily to be removed, as suited the
consummation of their bargain, and sale of me.
Mother Brown had in the meantime agreed the terms with this
loquorice old goat, which I afterwards understood were to be
fifty guineas peremptory, for the liberty of attempting me, and a
hundred more at the complete gratification of his desires, in the
triumph over my virginity: and as for me, I was to be left
entirely at the discretion of his liking and generosity. This
unrighteous contract being thus settled, he was so eager to be
put in possession, that he insisted on being introduced to drink
tea with me that afternoon, when we were to be left alone; nor
would he hearken to the procuress's remonstrances, that I was
not sufficiently prepared, and ripened for such an attack; that I
was too green and untamed, having been scarce twenty-four
hours in the house: it is the character of lust to be impatient,
and his vanity arming him against any supposition of other than
the common resistance of a maid on those occasions, made him
reject all proposals of a delay, and my dreadful trial was thus
fixed, unknown to me, for that very evening.
At dinner, Mrs. Brown and Phoebe did nothing but run riot in
praise of this wonderful cousin, and how happy that woman
would be that he would favour with his addresses; in short my
two gossips exhausted all their rhetoric to persuade me to accept
them: "that the gentleman was violently smitten with me at first
sight; that he would make my fortune if I would be a good girl
and not stand in my own light; that I should trust his honour;
that I should be made for ever, and have a chariot to go abroad
in," with all such stuff as was fit to turn the head of such a silly
ignorant girl as I then was: but luckily here my aversion had
taken already such deep root in me, my heart was so strongly
defended from him by my senses, that wanting the art to mask
my sentiments, I gave them no hopes of their employer
succeeding, at least very easily, with me. The glass too marched
pretty quick, with a view, I suppose, to make a friend of the
warmth of my constitution, in the minutes of the imminent
attack.
Thus they kept me pretty long at table, and about six in the
evening, after I had retired to my apartment, and the tea board
was set, enters my venerable mistress, followed close by that
satyr, who came in grinning in a way peculiar to him, and by his
odious presence, confirmed me in all the sentiments of
detestation which his first appearance had given birth to.
He sat down fronting me, and all tea time kept ogling me in a
manner that gave me the utmost pain and confusion, all the
mark of which he still explained to be my bashfulness, and not
being used to see company.
 Tea over, the commoding old lady pleady urgent business
(which indeed was true) to go out, and earnestly desired me to
entertain her cousin kindly till she came back, both for my own
sake and her; and then, with a "Pray, sir, be very good, be very
tender to the sweet child," she went out of the room, leaving me
staring, with my mouth open, and unprepared by the
suddenness of her departure, to oppose it.
We were now alone; and on that idea a sudden fit of trembling
seized me. I was so afraid, without a precise notion of why, and
what I had to fear, that I sat on the settee, by the fire side,
motionless and petrified, without life or spirit, not knowing how
to look or how to stir.
But long I was not suffered to remain in this state of
stupefaction: the monster squatted down by me on the settee,
and without farther ceremony or preamble, flings his arms about
my neck, and drawing me pretty forcibly towards him, obliged
me to receive, in spite of my struggles to disengage from him,
his pestilential kisses, which quite overcame me. Finding me
then next to senseless, and unresisting, he tears off my neck
handkerchief, and laid all open there, to his eyes and hands: still
I endured all without flinching, till emboldened by my sufferance
and silence, for I had not the power to speak or cry out, he
attempted to lay me down on the settee, and I felt his hand on
the lower part of my naked thighs, which were crossed, and
which he endeavoured to unlock. Oh then! I was roused out of
my passive endurance, and springing from him with an activity
he was not prepared for, threw myself at his feet, and begged
him, in the most moving tone, not to be rude, and that he would
not hurt me. "Hurt you, my dear?" says the brute, "I intend you
no harm. Has not the old lady told you that I love you? that I
shall do handsomely by you?"
"She has indeed, sir," said I, "but I cannot love you, indeed I
cannot! pray let me alone! yes! I will love you dearly if you will
let me alone and go away." But I was talking to the wind, for
whether my tears, my attitude, or the disorder of my dress
proved fresh incentives, or whether he was now under the
dominion of desires he could not bridle, but snorting and
foaming with lust and rage, he renews his attack, seizes me, and
again attempts to extend and fix me on the settee: in which he
succeeded so far as to lay me along, and even to toss my
petticoats over my head, and lay my thighs bare, which I
obstinately kept close, nor could he, though he attempted with
his knee to force them open, effect it so as to stand fair for being
master of the main avenue; he was unbuttoned, both waistcoat
and breeches, yet I only felt the weight of his body upon me,
whilst I lay struggling with indignation, and dying with terrors;
but he stopped all of a sudden, and got off, panting, blowing,
cursing, and repeating "old and ugly!" for so I had very naturally
called him in the heat of my defence.
The brute had, it seems, as I afterwards understood, brought
on, by his eagerness and struggle, the ultimate period of his hot
fit of lust, which his power was too short-lived to carry him
through the full execution of; of which my thighs and linen
received the effusion.
When it was over he bid me, with a tone of displeasure, get
up: "that he would not do me the honour to think of me any
more; that the old b——h might look out for another cully; that
he would not be fooled so by ever a country mock modesty in
England; that he supposed I had left my maidenhead with some
hobnail in the country, and was come to dispose of my skim-
milk in town" with a volley of the like abuse; which I listened to
with more pleasure than ever fond woman did to protestations
of love from her darling minion: for, incapable as I was of
receiving any addition to my perfect hatred and aversion to him,
I looked on this railing, as my security against his renewing his
most odious caress.
Yet, plain as Mrs. Brown's views were now come out, I had
not the heart, or spirit to open my eyes to them: still I could not
part with my dependence on that beldam, so much did I think
myself hers, soul and body: or rather, I sought to deceive myself
with the continuation of my good opinion of her, and choose to
wait the worst at her hands, sooner than be turned out to starve
in the streets, without a penny of money or a friend to apply to
these fears were my folly.
While this confusion of ideas was passing in my head, and I
sat pensively by the fire, with my eyes brimming with tears, my
neck still bare, and my cap fallen off in the struggle, so that my
hair was in the disorder you may guess, the villain's lust began, I
suppose, to be again in flow, at the sight of all that bloom of
youth which presented itself to his view, a bloom yet unenjoyed,
and of course not yet indifferent to him.
After some pause, he asked me with a tone of voice mightily
softer, whether I would make it up with him before the old lady
returned, and all should be well; he would restore me to his
affections, at the same time offering to kiss me and feel my
breasts. But now my extreme aversion, my fears, my
indignation, all acting upon me, gave me a spirit not natural to
me, so that breaking loose from him, I ran to the bell and rang
it, with such violence and effect as to bring up the maid to know
what was the matter, or whether the gentleman wanted
anything; and before he could proceed to greater extremities, she
bounced into the room, and seeing me stretched on the floor, my
hair all dishevelled, my nose gushing out blood, which did not a
little tragedize the scene, and my odious persecutor still intent of
pushing his brutal point, unmoved by all my cries and distress,
she was herself confounded and did not know what to do.
As much, however, as Martha might be prepared and
hardened to transactions of this sort, all womanhood must have
been out of her heart could she have seen this unmoved. Besides
that, on the face of things, she imagined that matters had gone
greater lengths than they really had, and that the courtesy of the
house had been actually consummated on me, and flung: me into
the condition I was in: in this notion she instantly took my part,
and advised the gentleman to go down and leave me to recover
myself, and "that all would be soon over with me; that when
Mrs. Brown and Phoebe, who were gone out, were returned,
they would take order for everything to his satisfaction; that
nothing would be lost by a little patience with the poor tender
thing; that for her part she was frightened; she could not tell
what to say to such doings; but that she would stay by me till
my mistress came home." As the wench said all this in a resolute
tone, and the monster himself began to perceive that things
would not mend by his staying, he took his hat and went out of
the room murmuring and pitting his brows like an old ape, so
that I was delivered from the horrors of his detestable presence.
As soon as he was gone, Martha very tenderly offered me her
assistance in anything, and would have got me some hartshorn
drops and put me to bed; which last I, at first, positively
refused, in the fear that the monster might return and take me at
that disadvantage. However, with much persuasion and
assurances that I should not be molested that night she prevailed
on me to lie down; and indeed I was so weakened by my
struggles, so dejected by my fearful apprehension, so terror-
struck, that I had not power to sit up, or hardly to give answers
to the questions with which the curious Martha plied and
perplexed me.
Such too, and so cruel was my fate, that I dreaded the sight of
Mrs. Brown, as if I had been the criminal, and she the person
injured; a mistake which you will not think so strange, on
distinguishing that neither virtue nor principles had the least
share in the defence I had made, but only the particular aversion
I had conceived against this first brutal and frightful invader of
my tender innocence.
I passed then the time till Mrs. Brown came home, under all
the agitations of fear and despair that may easily be guessed.
About eleven at night my two ladies came home, and having
received rather a favourable account from Martha, who had run
down to let them in, for Mr. Crofts (that was the name of my
brute) was gone out of the house, after waiting till he had tired
his patience for Mrs. Brown's return, they came thundering up
stairs, and seeing me pale, my face bloody, and all the marks of
the most thorough dejection, they employed themselves more to
comfort and re-inspirit me than in making me the reproaches I
was weak enough to fear, I who had so many juster and stronger
to retort upon them.
Mrs. Brown withdrawn, Phoebe came presently to bed to me,
and what with the answers she drew from me, what with her
own method of palpably satisfying herself, she soon discovered
that I had been more frightened than hurt; upon which I
suppose, being herself seized with sleep, and reserving her
lectures and instructions till the next morning, she left me,
properly speaking, to my unrest; for, later tossing and turning
the greatest part of the night, and tormenting myself with the
falsest notions and apprehensions of things, I fell, through mere
fatigue into a kind of delirious doze, out of which I waked late in
the morning, in a violent fever: a circumstance which was
extremely critical to reprieve me, at least for a time, from the
attacks of a wretch, infinitely more terrible to me than death
itself.
The interested care that was taken of me during my illness, in
order to restore me to a condition of making good the bawd's
engagements, or of enduring further trials, had, however, such
an effect on my grateful disposition that I even thought myself
obliged to my un-doers for their attention to promote my
recovery; and, above all, for the keeping out of my sight of that
brutal ravisher, the author of my disorder, on their finding I was
too strongly moved at the bare mention of his name.
Youth is soon raised, and a few days were sufficient to
conquer the fury of my fever: but, what contributed most to my
perfect recovery and to my reconciliation with life, was the
timely news that Mr. Crofts, who was a merchant of
considerable dealings, was arrested at the King's suit, for nearly
forty thousand pounds, on account of his driving a certain
contraband trade, and that his affairs were so desperate, that
even were it in his inclination, it would not be in his power to
renew his designs upon me: for he was instantly thrown into a
prison, which it was not likely he would get out of in haste.
Mrs. Brown, who had touched his fifty guineas, advanced to
so little purpose, and lost all hopes of the remaining hundred,
began to look upon my treatment of him with a more favourable
eye; and as they had observed my temper to be perfectly
tractable and conformable to their views, all the girls that
composed her flock were suffered to visit me, and had their cue
to dispose me, by their conversation, to a perfect resignation of
myself to Mrs. Brown's direction.
Accordingly they were let in upon me, and all that frolic and
thoughtless gaiety in which those giddy creatures consume either
leisure, made me envy a condition of which I only saw the fair
side; insomuch, that the being one of them became even my
ambition: a disposition which they all carefully cultivated; and I
wanted now nothing but to restore my health, that I might be
able to undergo the ceremony of the initiation.
Conversation, example, in short all, contributed, in that house,
to corrupt my native parity, which had taken no root in
education; whilst now the inflammable principal of pleasure, so
easily fired at my age, made strange work within me, and all the
modesty I was brought up in the habit, not the instruction of,
began to melt away like dew before the sun's heat; not to
mention that I made a vice of necessity, from the constant fears
I had of being turned out to starve.
I was soon pretty well recovered, and at certain hours allowed
to range all over the house, but cautiously kept from seeing any
company till the arrival of Lord B——, from Bath, to whom Mrs.
Brown, in respect to his experienced generosity on such
occasions, proposed to offer the perusal of that trinket of mine,
which bears so great an imaginary value; and his lordship being
expected in town in less than a fortnight, Mrs. Brown judged I
would be entirely renewed in beauty and freshness by that time,
and afforded her the chance of a better bargain than she had
driven with Mr. Crofts.
In the meantime, I was so thoroughly, as they call it, brought
over, so tame to their whistle, that, had my cage door been set
open, I had no idea that I ought to fly anywhere, sooner than
stay where I was; nor had I the least sense of regretting my
condition, but waited very quietly for whatever Mrs. Brown
should order concerning me; who on her side, by herself and her
agents, took more than the necessary precautions to lull and lay
asleep all just reflections on my destiny.
Preachments of morality over the left shoulder; a life of joy
painted in the gayest colours; caresses, promises, indulgent
treatment; nothing, in short, was wanting to domesticate me
entirely and to prevent my going out anywhere to get better
advice. Alas! I dreamed of no such thing.
Hitherto I had been indebted only to the girls of the house for
the corruption of my innocence: their luscious talk, in which
modesty was far from respected, their description of their
engagements with men, had given me a tolerable insight into the
nature and mysteries of their profession, at the same time that
they highly provoked an itch of florid warm-spirited blood
through every vein: but above all, my bed fellow Phoebe, whose
pupil I more immediately was, exerted her talents in giving me
the first tinctures of pleasure: whilst nature, now warmed and
wantoned with discoveries so interesting, piqued a curiosity
which Phoebe artfully whetted, and leading me from question to
question of her own suggestion, explained to me all the
mysteries of Venus. But I could not long remain in such a house
as that, without being an eye-witness of more than I could
conceive from her descriptions.
One day, about twelve at noon, being thoroughly recovered of
my fever, I happened to be in Mrs. Brown's dark closet, where I
had not been half an hour, resting upon the maid's bed, before I
heard a rustling in the bed-chamber, separated from the closet
only by two sash doors, before the glasses of which were drawn
two yellow damask curtains, but not so close as to exclude the
full view of the room from any person in the closet.
I instantly crept softly and posted myself so, that seeing
everything minutely, I could not myself be seen; and who should
come in but the venerable mother Abbess herself! handed in by a
tall, brawny young Horse-grenadiers, moulded in the Hercules
style: in fine, the choice of the most experienced dame, in those
affairs, in all London.
 Oh! how still and hush did I keep at my stand, lest any noise
should baulk my curiosity, or bring Madam into the closet!
But I had not much reason to fear either, for she was entirely
taken up with her present great concern, that she had no sense
of attention to spare to anything else.
Droll was it to see that clumsy fat figure of her's flop down on
the foot of the bed, opposite to the closet door so that I had a
full front view of all her charms.
Her paramour sat down by her: he seemed to be a man of very
few words, and a great stomach; for proceeding instantly to
essentials, he gave her some hearty smacks, and thrusting his
hands into her breasts, disengaged them from her stays, in scorn
of whose confinement they broke loose, and sagged down, navel-
low at least. A more enormous pair did my eyes never behold,
nor of a worse colour, flagging, soft, and most lovingly
contiguous: yet such as they were, this great beef-eater seemed
to paw them with a most unenviable lust, seeking in vain to
confine or cover one of them with a hand scarce less than a
shoulder of mutton. After toying with them thus some time, as if
they had been worth it, he laid her down pretty briskly, and
canting up her petticoats, made barely a mask of them to her
broad red face, that blushed with nothing but brandy.
As he stood on one side, unbuttoning his waistcoat and
breeches, her fat brawny thighs hung down, and the whole
greasy landscape lay fairly open to my view; a wide open
mouthed gap, overshaded with a grizzly bush, seemed held out
like a beggar's wallet for its provision.
But I soon had my eyes called off by a more striking object
that entirely engrossed them.
Her sturdy stallion had now unbuttoned, and produced naked,
stiff and erect, that wonderful machine, which I had never seen
before, and which, for the interest my own seat of pleasure
began to take furiously in it, I stared at with all the eyes I had:
however, my senses were too much flurried, too much
concentered in that now burning spot of mine, to observe
anything more than in general the make and turn of that
instrument; from which the instinct of nature, yet more than all
I had heard of it, now strongly informed me, I was to expect that
supreme pleasure which she had placed in the meeting of those
parts so admirably fitted for each other.
Long, however, the young spark did not remain before giving
it two or three shakes, by way of brandishing it, he threw
himself upon her, and his back being now towards me, I could
only take his being ingulphed for granted, by the directions he
moved in, and the impossibility of missing so staring a mark;
and now the bed shook, the curtains rattled so that I could
scarce hear the sighs and murmurs, the heaves and pantings that
accompanied the action, from the beginning to the end; the
sound and sight of which thrilled to the very soul of me, and
made every vein of my body circulate liquid fires: the emotion
grew so viol-lent that it almost intercepted my respiration.
Prepared then, and disposed as I was by the discourse of my
companions, and Phoebe's minute detail of everything, no
wonder that such a sight gave the last dying blow to my native
innocence.
Whilst they were in the heat of the action, guided by nature
only, I stole my hand up my petticoats, and with fingers on fire,
seized and yet more inflamed that center of all my senses: my
heart palpitated, as if it would force its way through my bosom:
I breathed with pain; I twisted my thighs, squeezed and
compressed the lips of that virgin slit, and following
mechanically the example of Phoebe's manual operation on it, as
far as I could find admission, brought on at last the critical
ecstasy, the melting flow, into which nature, spent with excess
of pleasure, dissolves and dies away.
After which, my senses recovered coolness enough to observe
the rest of the transaction between this happy pair.
The young fellow had just dismounted, when the old lady
immediately sprung up, with all the vigour of youth, derived, no
doubt, from her late refreshment; and making him sit down,
began in her turn to kiss him, to pat and pinch his cheeks, and
play with his hair: all which he received with an air of
indifference and coolness that showed him to be much altered
from what he was when he first went on to the breach.
My pious governess, however, not being above calling in
auxiliaries, unlocks a little case of cordials that stood near the
bed, and made him pledge her in a very plentiful dram: after
which, and a little amorous parley, Madam set herself down
upon the same place, at the bed's foot; and the young fellow
standing sidewise by her, she, with the greatest effrontery
imaginable, unbuttons his breeches, and removing his shirt,
draws out his affair, so shrunk and diminished, that I could not
but remember the difference, now crest-fallen, or just faintly
lifting its head: but our experience matron very soon, by chaffing
it with her hands, brought it to swell to that size and erection I
had before seen it up to.
I admired then, upon a fresh account, and with a nicer survey,
the texture of that capital part of man: the flaming red head as it
stood uncapt, the whiteness of the shaft, and the shrub growth
of curling hair that embrowned the foots of it, the roundish bag
that dangled down from it, all exacted my eager attention, and
renewed my flame. But, as the main affair was now at the point
the industrious dame had laboured to bring it to, she was not in
the humour to put off the payment of her pains, but laying
herself down, drew him gently upon her, and thus they finished,
in the same manner as before, the old last act.
This over, they both went out lovingly together, the old lady
having first made him a present, as near as I could observe, of
three or four pieces; he being not only her particular favourite
on account of his performances, but a retainer to the house;
from whose sight she had taken great care hitherto to secret me,
lest he might not have had patience to wait for my lord's arrival,
but have insisted on being his taster, which the old lady was
under too much subjection to him to dare dispute with him; for
every girl of the house fell to him in course, and the old lady
only now and then got her turn, in consideration of the
maintenance he had, and which he could scarce be accused of
not earning from her.
As soon as I heard them go down-stairs, I stole up softly to my
own room, out of which I had luckily not been missed; there I
began to breathe more free, and to give a loose to those warm
emotions which the sight of such an encounter had raised in me,
I laid me down on the bed, stretched myself out, joining and
ardently wishing, and requiring any means to divert or allay the
rekindled rage and tumult of my desires, which all pointed
strongly to their pole: man. I felt about the bed as if I sought for
something that I grasped in my waking dream, and not finding
it, could have cried for vexation; every part of me plowing with
simulated fires. At length, I resorted to the only present remedy,
that of vain attempts at digitation, where the smallness of the
theatre did not yet afford room enough for action, and where the
pain my fingers gave me, in striving for admission, though they
procured me a slight satisfaction for the present, started an
apprehension which I could not be easy till I had communicated
to Phoebe and received her explanations upon it.
The opportunity, however, did not offer till next morning, for
Phoebe did not come to bed till long after I was gone to sleep. As
soon then as we were both awake, it was but in course to bring
our ly-a-bed chat to hand, on the subject of my uneasiness: to
which a recital of the love scene I had thus, by chance, been
spectatress of, served for a preface.
Phoebe could not hear it to the end without more than one
interruption by peals of laughter, and my ingenuous way of
relating matters did not a little heighten the joke to her.
But, on her sounding me how the sight had affected me,
without mincing or hiding the pleasurable emotions it had
inspired me with, I told her at the same time that one remark
had perplexed me, and that very considerably. "Aye!" says she,
"what was that?" "Why," replied I, "having very curiously and
attentively compared the size of that enormous machine, which
did not appear, at least to my fearful imagination, less than my
wrist, and at least three of my hand-fuls long, to that of the
tender small part of me which was framed to receive it, I could
not conceive its being possible to afford it entrance without
dying, perhaps in the greatest pain, since she well knew that
even a finger thrust in there hurt me beyond bearing. As to my
mistress's and yours, I can very plainly distinguish the different
dimensions of them from mine, palpable to the touch, and
visible to the eye; so that, in short, great as the promised
pleasure may be, I am afraid of the pain of the experiment."
Phoebe at this redoubled her laugh, and whilst I expected a
very serious solution of my doubts and apprehensions in this
matter, only told me that "she never heard of a mortal wound
being given in those parts, by that terrible weapon, and that
some she knew younger, and as delicately made as myself, had
outlived the operation; that she believed, at the worst, I should
take a great deal of liking; that true it was, there was a great
diversity of sizes in those parts, owing to nature, child-bearing,
frequent over-stretching with unmerciful machines, but that at a
certain age and habit of body, even the most experienced in
those affairs could not well distinguish between the maid and
the woman, supposing too an absence of all artifice, in their
natural situation: but that since chance had thrown in my way
one sight of that sort, she would procure me another, that
should feast my eyes more delicately, and go a great way in the
cure of my fears from that imaginary disproportion".
On this she asked me if I knew Polly Phillips? "Undoubterly,"
says I, "the fair girl which was so tender of me when I was sick,
and has been, as you told me, but two months in the house."
"The same," says Phoebe. "You must know then, she is kept by a
young Genoes merchant, whom his uncle, who is immensely
rich, and whose darling he is, on a pretex of settling some
accounts, but in reality to humour his inclinations for travelling,
and seeing the world. He met casually with this Polly once in
company, and taking a likning to her, makes it worth her while
to keep entirely to him. He comes to her here twice or thrice a
week, and she receives him in the light closet up one pair of
stairs, where he enjoys her in a taste, I suppose, peculiar to the
heat, or perhaps the caprices of his own country, I say no more,
but to-morrow being his day, you shall see what passes between
them, from a place only known to your mistress and myself."
You may be sure, in the ply I was now taking, I had no
objection to the proposal, and was rather a tip-toe for its
accomplishments.
At five in the evening next day, Phoebe, punctual to her
promise, came to me as I sat alone in my own room, and
beckoned me to follow her.
We went down the back stairs very softly, and opening the
door of a dark closet, where there was some old furniture kept,
and some cases of liquor, she drew me in after her, and fastened
the door upon us, we had no light but what came through a long
crevice in the partition between ours and the light closet, where
the scene of action lay; so that sitting on those low cases, we
could, with the greatest ease, as well as clearness, see all objects
(ourselves unseen), only by applying our eyes close to the
crevice, where the moulding of a panel had warped, or started a
little on the other side.
The young gentleman was the first person I saw, with his back
directly towards me, looking at a print. Polly was not yet come:
in less than a minute though, the door opened, and she came in;
and at the noise the door made he turned about, and come to
meet her, with an air of the greatest tenderness and satisfaction.
After saluting her, he led her to a coach that fronted us, where
they both sat down, and the young Genoes helped her to a glass
of wine, with some Naples biscuits on a salver.
Presently, when they had exchanged a few kisses, and
questions in broken English on one side, he began to unbutton,
and, in fine, stript unto his shirt.
As if this had been the signal agreed on for pulling off all their
clothes, a scheme which the heat of the season perfectly
favoured, Polly began to draw her pins, and as she had no stays
to unlace, she was in a trice, with her gallant's officious
assistance, undressed to all but her shift.
When he saw this, his breeches were immediately loosened,
waist and knee bands, and slipped over his ankles, clean off; his
shirt collar was unbottoned too: then, first giving Polly an
encouraging kiss, he stole, as it were, the shift off the girl, who
being, I suppose, broke and familiarized to this humour, blushed
indeed, but less than I did at the apparition of her, now standing
stark naked, just as she came ont of the hands of pure nature,
with her black hair loose and a-float down her dazzling white
neck and shoulders, whilst the deepened carnation of her cheeks
went off gradually into the hue of glazed snow: for such were the
blended tints polish of her skin.
This girl could not be above eighteen: her face regular and
sweet featured, her shape exquisite; nor could I help envying her
two ripe enchanting breasts, finely plumped out in flesh, but
withal so round, so firm, that they sustained themselves, in
scorn of any stay: then their nipples, pointing different ways,
marked their pleasing separation; beneath them lay the delicious
tract of the belly, which terminated in a parting of rift scarce
discerning, that modesty seemed to retire downward, and seek
shelter between two plump fleshy thighs: the curling hair that
overspread its delightful front, clothed it with the richest sable
fur in the universe: in short, she was evidently a subject for the
painters to court her, sitting to them for a pattern female beauty,
in all the true pride and pomp of nakedness.
The young Italian (still in his shirt) stood gazing and
transported at the sight of beauties that might have fired a dying
hermit; his eager eyes devoured her, as she shifted attitudes at
his discretion: neither were his hands excluded their share of the
high feast, but wandered, on the hunt of pleasure, over every
part and inch of her body, so qualified to afford the most
exquisite sense of it.
In the mean time time, one could not help observing the swell
of his shirt before, that bolstered out, and pointed out the
condition of things behind the curtain: but he soon removed it,
by slipping his shirt over his head; and now, as to nakedness,
they had nothing to reproach one another.
The young gentleman, by Phoebe's guess, was about two and
twenty; tall and well limbed. His body was finely formed, and of
a most vigorous make, square shouldered, and broad chested:
his face was not remarkable any way, but for a nose inclining to
the Roman, eyes large, black, and sparkling, and a ruddiness in
his cheeks that was the more a grace; for his complexion was of
the brownest, not of that dusky dun colour which excludes, the
idea of freshness, but of that clear, olive gloss, which glowing
with life, dazzles perhaps less than fairness, and yet pleases
more, when it pleases at all. His hair being too short to tie fell
no lower than his neck, in short easy curls; and he had a few
sprigs about his paps, that garnished his chest in a style of
strength and manliness. Then his grand movement, which
seemed to rise out of a thicket of curling hair, that spread from
the root all over his thighs and belly up to the navel, stood stiff
and upright, but of a size to frighten me, by sympathy for the
small tender part which was the object of its fury, and which
now lay exposed to my fairest view; for he had, immediately on
stoppings off his shirt, gently pushed her down on the couch,
which stood conveniently to break her willing fall. Her thighs
were spread out to their utmost extention, and discovered
between them the mark of the sex, the red-centered cleft of
flesh, whose lips vermillioning inwards, expressed a small ruby
line in sweet miniature, such as Guide's touch or colouring:
could never attain to the life or delicacy of.
Phoebe, at this, gave me a gentle jog, to prepare me for a
whisper question: "Whether I thought my little maiden-head was
much less?" But my attention was too much engrossed, too much
inwrapped with all I saw, to be able to give her any answer.
By this time the young gentelman had changed her posture
from lying breadth to length-wise on the coach: but her thighs
were still spread, and the mark lay fair for him, who now
kneeling between them, displayed to us a side view of that fierce
erect machine of his, which threatened no less than splitting the
tender victim, who lay smiling at the uplifted stroke, nor seemed
to decline it. He looked upon his weapon himself with some
pleasure, and guiding it with his hand to the inviting; slit, drew
aside the lips, and lodged it (after some thrusts, which Polly
seemed even to assist) about half way; but there it stuck, I
suppose from its growing thickness: he draws it again, and just
wetting it with spittle, re-enters, and with ease sheathed it now
up to the hilt, at which Polly gave a deep sigh, which was quite
another tone than one of pain; he thrusts, she heaves, at first
gently, and in a regular cadence; but presently the transport
began to be too violent to observe any order or measure; their
motions were too rapid, their kisses too fierce' and fervent for
nature to support such fury long: both seemed to me out of
themselves: their eyes darted fires: "Oh! oh! I can't bear it. It is
too much. I die. I am going," were Polly's expressions of extasy:
his joys were more silent: but soon broken murmurs, sighs heart-
fetched, and at length a dispatching thrust, as if he would have
forced himself up her body, and then the motionless languor of
all his limbs, all shewed that the die-away moment was come
upon him; which she gave signs of joining with by, the wild
throwing of her hands about, closing her eyes, and giving a deep
sob, in which she seemed to expire in an agony of bliss.
When he had finished his stroke, and got from off her, she lay
still without the least motion, breathless, as it should seem, with
pleasure. He replaced her again breadth-wise on the couch,
unable to sit up, with her thighs open, between which I could
observe a kind of white liquid, like froth, hanging about the
outward lips of that recently opened wound, which now glowed
with a deeper red. Presently she gets up, and throwing her arms
round him, seemed far undelighted with the trial he had put her
to, to judge, at least by the fondness with which she eyed, and
hung upon him.
For my part, I will not pretend to describe what I felt over me
during this scene; but from that instant, adieu all fears of what
man can do unto me! they were now changed into such ardent
desires, such ungovernable longings, that I could have by the
sleeve, and offered him the bauble, which I now imagined the
loss of would be a gain I could not too soon procure myself.
Phoebe, who had more experience, and to whom such sights
were not so new, could not however, be unmoved at so warm a
scene; and drawing me away softly from the peeping hole, for
fear of being overheard, guided me as the door as possible, all
passive and obedient to her least signals.
Here was no room either to sit or lie, but making me stand
with my back towards the door, she lifted up my petticoats, and
with her busy fingers fell to visit and explore that part of me,
where I was perfectly sick and ready to die with desire; that the
bare touch of her finger, in that critical place, had the effect of a
fire to a train, and her hand instantly made her sensible to what
a pitch I was wound up, and melted by the sight she had thus
procured me. Satisfied then with her success, in allaying a heat
that would have made me impatient of seeing the continuation
of the transactions between our amourous couple, she brought
me again to the crevice, so favourable to our curiosity.
We had certainly been but a few instants away from it, and
yet on our return we saw everything in good forwardness for
recommencing the tender hostilities.
The young foreigner was sitting down, fronting us, on the
coach, with Polly upon one knee, who had her arms round his
neck, whilst the extreme whiteness of her skin was not
undelightfully contrasted by the smooth glossy brown of her
lover's.
But who could count the fierce, unnumbered kisses given and
taken? In which I could often discover their mouths were double
tongued, and seemed to favour the mutual insertion with the
greatest gust and delight.
In the meantime, his red-headed champion, that had so lately
fled the pit, quelled and abashed, was now recovered to the top
of his condition, perked and crested up between Polly's thighs,
who was not wanting, on her part, to coax and keep it in good
humour, stroking it, with her head down, and receiving even its
velvet tip between the lips of not its proper mouth: whether it
was to render it more glib and easy of entrance, I could not tell;
but it had such an effect, that the young gentleman seemed by
his eyes, that sparkled with more excited lustre, and his
inflamed countenance, to receive increase of pleasure. He got
up, and taking Polly in his arms, embraced her, and said
something too softly for me to hear, leading her withal to the
foot of the couch, and taking delight to slap her thighs and
posteriors with that stiff sinew of his, which hit them with a
spring that he gave it with his hand, and made them resound
again, but her about as much as he meant to hurt her, for she
seemed to have as frolic a taste as himself.
But guess my surprise, when I saw the lazy young rogue lie
down on his back, and gently pull down Polly upon him, who
giving way to his humour, stradled, and with her hands
conducted her blind favourite to the right place; and following
her impulse, ran directly upon the flaming point of this weapon
of pleasure, which she staked herself upon, up pierced, and
infixed to the extremest hair breadth of it: thus she sat on him a
few instants, enjoying and relishing her situation, whilst he
toyed with her provoking breasts. Sometimes she would stoop to
meet his kiss: but presently the sting of pleasure spurred them
up to fiercer action; then began the storm of heaves, which, from
the undermost combatant, were thrust at the same time, he
crossing his hands over her, and drawing her home to him with
a sweet violence: the inverted strokes of anvil over hammer soon
brought on the critical period, in which all the signs of a close
conspiring extasy informed us of the point they were at.
For me, I could bear to see no more; I was so overcome, so
inflamed at the second part of the same play, that, mad to an
intolerable degree, I hugged, I clasped Phoebe, as if she had
wherewithal to relieve me. Pleased however with, and pitying
the taking she could feel me in, she drew towards the door, and
opening it softly as she could, we both got off undiscovered, and
reconducted me to my own room, where, unable to keep my
legs, in the agitation I was in, I instantly threw myself down on
the bed, where I lay transported, though ashamed at what I felt.
Phoebe lay down by me, and asked me archly, "if, now that I
had seen the enemy, and fully considered him, I was still afraid
of him? or did I think I could come to a close engagement with
him?" To all which, not a word on my side; I sighed, and could
scarcely breathe. She takes hold of my hand, and having rolled
up her own petticoats, forced it half strivingly, towards those
parts, where, now grown more knowing, I missed the main
object of my wishes; and finding not even the shadow of what I
wanted, where every thing was so fiat, or so hollow, in the
vexation I was in at it. I should have withdrawn my hand, but
for fear of disobliging her. Abandoning it then entirely to her
management, she made use of it as she thought proper, to
procure herself rather the shadow than the substance of any
pleasure. For my part, I now pined for more solid food, and
promised tacitly to myself that I would not be put off much
longer with this foolery of woman to woman, of Mrs. Brown did
not soon provide me with the essential specific. In short, I had
all the air of not being able to wait the arrival of my lord B——,
though he was now expected in a very fews days: nor did I wait
for him, for love itself took charge of the disposal of me, in spite
of interest, or gross lust.
It was now two days after the closet scene, that I got up about
six in the morning, and leaving my bedfellow fast asleep, stole
down, with no other thought than of taking a little fresh air in a
small garden, which our back parlour opened into, and from
which my confinement debarred me, at the times company came
to my house; but now sleep and silence reigned all over it.
I opened the parlour door, and well surprised was I at seeing,
by the side of a fire half-out, a young gentleman in the old lady's
elbow chair, with his legs laid upon another, fast asleep, and left
there by his thoughtless companions, who had drank him down,
and then went off with every one but his mistress, whilst he
stayed behind by the courtesy of the old matron, who would not
disturb or turn him out in that condition at one in the morning;
and beds, it is more than probable there were none to spare. On
the table still remained the punch bowl and glasses, stewed
about in their usual disorder after a drunken revel.
But when I drew nearer, to view the sleeping estray, heavens!
what a sight! No! term of years, no turn of fortune could ever
eraze the lightninglike impression his form made on me. Yes!
dearest object of my earliest passion, I command for ever the
remembrance of thy first appearance to my ravished eyes, it calls
thee up, present; and I see thee now.
Figure to yourself, Madam, fair stripling between eighteen and
nineteen, with his head reclined on one of the sides of the chair,
his hair disordered curls, irregularly shading a face, on which all
the roseate bloom of youth and all the manly graces conspired to
fix my eye sand heart; even the languour and paleness of his
face, in which the momentary triumph of the lily over the rose
was owing to the excesses of the night, gave an inexpressible
sweetness to the finest features imaginable: his eyes, closed in
sleep, displayed the meeting edges of their lids beautifully
bordered with long eye-lashes; over which no pencil could have
described two more regular arches than those that graced his
forehead, which was high, perfectly white and smooth; then a
pair of vermilion lips, pouting and swelling to the touch, as if a
bee had freshly stung them, seemed to challenge me to get the
gloves off this lovely sleeper, had not the modesty and respect,
which in both sexes are inseparable from a true passion, checked
my impulses.
But on seeing his shirt collar unbottoned, and bosom whiter
than a drift of snow, the pleasure of considering it could not
bribe me to lengthen it, at the hazard of a health that began to
be my life's concern. Love, that made me timid, taught me to be
tender too: with a trembling hand I took hold of one of his, and
waking him as gently as possible, he started, and looking, at
first a little wildly, said with a voice that sent its harmonious
sound to my heart: "Pray, child, what-a-clock is it?" I told him,
and added that he might catch cold if he slept longer with his
breast open in the cool of the morning air. On this he thanked
me with a sweetness perfectly agreeing with that of his features
and eyes; the last now broad open, and eagerly surveying me,
carried the surightly fires they sparkled with directly to my
heart.
It seems, that having drank too freely before he came upon the
rake with some of his young companions, he had put himself out
of a condition to go through all the weapons with them, and
crown the night with a getting a mistress; so that seeing me in a
loose undress, he did not doubt but I was one of the misses of
the house, sent in to repair his loss of time; but though he seized
that notion, and a very obvious one it was, without hesitation,
yet, whether my figure made a more than ordinary impression
on him, or whether it was his natural politeness, he addressed
me in a manner far from rude, though still on the foot of one of
the house pliers come to amuse him; and giving me the first kiss
that I ever relished from man in my life, asked me if I could
favour him with my company, assuring me that he would make
it worth my while: but had not even new-born love, that true
refiner of lust, opposed so sudden a surrender, the fear of being
surprised by the house was a sufficient bar to my compliance.
I told him then, in a tone set by love itself, that for reasons I
had not time to explain to him. I could not stay with him, and
might even ever see him again, with a sigh at these words, which
broke from the bottom of my heart. My conqueror, who, as he
afterwards told me, had been struck with my appearance, and
liked me as much as he could think of liking any one in my
supposed way of life, asked me briskly at once, if I would be
kept by him, and that he would take a lodging for me directly,
and relieve me from any engagements he presumed I might be
under to the house.
Rash, sudden, undigested, even dangerous as this offer might
be from a perfect stranger, and that stranger a giddy boy, the
prodigious love I was struck with for him, had put a charm into
every objection: I not resisting, and blinded me to every
objection; I could, at that instant, have died for him: think if I
could resist an invitation to live with him! Thus my heart,
beating strong to the proposal, dictated my answer, after scarce
a minute's pause, that I would accept of his offer, and make my
escape to him in what way he pleased, and that I would be
entirely at his disposal, let it be good or bad. I have often since
wondered that so great an easiness did not disgust him, or make
me too cheap in his eyes, but my fate had so appointed it, that
in his fears of the hazzard of the town, he had been some time
looking out for a girl to take into keeping, and my person
happening to hit his fancy, it was by one of those miracles
reserved to love, that we struck the bargain in the instant, which
we sealed by an exchange of kisses, that the hopes of a more
uninterrupted enjoyment engaged him to content himself with.
Never, however, did dear youth carry in his head more
wherewith to justify the turning of a girl's head, and making her
set all consequences at defiance, for the sake of following a
gallant.
For, besides all the perfections of manly beauty which were
assembled in his form, he had an air of neatness and gentility,
certain smartness in the carriage and port of his head, that yet
more distinguished him; his eyes were sprightly and full of
meaning; his looks had in them something at once sweet and
commanding; his complexion out-bloomed the lovely coloured
rose, whilst its inimitable tender vivid glow clearly saved it from
the reproach of wanting life, of raw and dough-like, which is
commonly made of those so extremely fair as he was.
Our little plan was, that I should get out about seven the next
morning (which I could readily promise, as I knew where to get
the key of the street door) and he would wait at the end of the
street with a coach to convey me safe off; after which, we would
send, and clear any debt incurred by my stay at Mrs. Brown's,
who, he only judged, in gross, might not care to part with one,
he thought, so fit to draw custom to the house.
I then just hinted to him not to mention in the house his
having seen such a person as me, for reasons I would explain to
him more at leisure. And then, for fear of miscarrying, by being
seen together, I tore myself from him with a bleeding heart, and
stole up softly to my room, where I found Phoebe still fast
asleep, and hurrying off my few clothes, lay down by her, with a
mixture of joy and anxiety, that may be easier conceived than
expressed.
The risks of Mrs. Brown's discovering my purpose, of
disappointments, misery, ruin, all vanished before this new-
kindled flame. The seeing, the touching, the being, if but for a
night, with this idol of my fond virgin heart, appeared to me a
happiness above the purchase of my liberty or life. He might use
me ill, let him: he was the master, happy, too happy, even to
receive death at so dear a hand.
To this purpose were the reflections of the whole day, of
which every minute seemed to me a little eternity. How often
did I visit the clock! nay, was tempted to advance the tedious
hand, as if that would have advanced the time with it! Had
those of the house had the least observations on me, they must
have remarked something extraordinary from the discomposure I
could not help betraying; especially when at dinner mention was
made of the charmingest youth having been there, and stayed
breakfast. "Oh! he was such a beauty!... I should have died for
him!... they would pull caps for him!..." and the like fooleries;
which, however, was throwing oil on a fire I was sorely put to it
to smother the blaze of.
The fluctuations of my mind, the whole day, produced one
good effect: which was, that, through mere fatigue, I slept
tolerably well till five in the morning, when I got up, and having
dressed myself, waited, under the double tortures of fear and
impatience, for the appointed hour. It came at last, the dear,
critical, dangerous hour came; and now, supported only by the
courage love lent me, I ventured, a tip-toe, down stairs, leaving
my box behind, for fear of being surprized with it in going out.
I got to the street door, the key whereof was always laid on
the chair by our bed side, in trust with Phoebe, who having not
the least suspicion of my entertaining any design to go from
them (nor, indeed, had I, but the day before), made no reserve
or concealment of it from me. I opened the door with great ease;
love, that emboldened, protected me too: and now, got safe into
the street, I saw my new guardian angel waiting at a coach door,
ready open. How I got to him I know not: I suppose I flew; but I
was in the coach in a trice, and he by the side of me, with his
arms clasped round me, and giving me the kiss of welcome. The
coachman had his orders, and drove to them.
My eyes were instantly filled with tears, but tears of the most
delicious delight; to find myself in the arms of that beauteous
youth, was a rapture that my little hear swam in; past or future
were equally out of the question with me; the present was as
much as all my powers of life were sufficient to bear the
transport of, without fainting. Nor were the most tender
embraces, the most soothing expressions wanting on his side, to
assure me of his love, and of never giving me cause to repent the
bold step I had taken, in throwing myself thus entirely upon his
honour and generosity. But, alas! this was no merit in me, for I
was drove to it by a passion too impetuous for me to resist, and,
I did what I did, because I could not help it.
In an instant, for time was now annihilated with me, we were
landed at a public house in Chelsea, hospitably commodious for
the reception of duet parties of pleasure, where a breakfast of
chocolate was prepared for us.
An old jolly stager, who kept it, and understood life perfectly
well, breakfasted with us, and leering archly at me, gave us both
joy, and said, "we were well paired, i' faith! that a great many
gentlemen and ladies used his house, but he had never seen a
handsomer couple... he was sure I was a fresh piece... I looked
so country, so innocent! well my spouse was a lucky man!..." all
which, common landlord's cant, not only pleased and soothed
me, but helped to diver my confusion at being with my new
sovereign, whom, the minute approached, I began to fear to be
alone with: a timidity which true love had a greater share in
than even maiden bashful-ness.
I wished, I doated, I could have died for him; and yet, I know
not how, or why I dreaded the point which had been the object
of my fiercest wishes; my pulses beat fears, amidst a flush of the
warmest desires. This struggle of the passions, however, this
conflict betwixt modesty and lovesick longings, made me burst
again into tears; which he took, as he had done before, only for
the remains of concern and emotion at the suddenness of my
change of condition, in committing myself to his care; and, in
consequence of that idea, did and said all that he thought would
most comfort and re-inspirit me.
After breakfast, Charles (the dear familiar name I must take
the liberty henceforward to distinguish my Adonis by), with a
smile full of meaning, took me gently by the hand, and said:
"Come, my dear, I will show you a room that commands a fine
prospect over some gardens"; and without waiting for an answer,
in which he relieved me extremely, he led me up into a chamber,
airy and lightsome, where all seeing of prospects was out of the
question, except that of a bed, which had all the air of
recommending the room to him.
Charles had just slipped the bolt of the door, and running,
caught me in his arms, and lifting me from the ground, with his
lips glued to mine, bore me trembling, panting, dying with soft
fears and tender wishes, to the bed; where his impatience would
not suffer him to undress me, more than just unpinning my
handkerchief and gowns, and unlacing my stays.
My bosom was now bare, and rising in the warmest throbs,
presented to his sight and feeling the firm hard swell of a pair of
young breast, such as may be imagined of a girl not sixteen,
fresh out of the country, and never before handled: but even
their pride, whiteness, fashion, pleasing resistance to the touch,
could not bribe his restless hands from roving; but, giving them
the loose, my petticoats and shift were soon taken up, and their
stronger center of attraction laid open to their tender invasion.
My fears, however, made me mechanically close my thighs; but
the very touch of his hand insinuated between them, disclosed
them and opened a way for the main attack.
In the mean time, I lay fairly exposed to the examination of
his eyes and hands, quiet and unresisting; which confirmed him
the opinion he proceeded so cavalierly upon, that I was no
novice in these matters, since he had taken me out of a common
bawdy house, nor had I said one thing to prepossess him of my
virginity; and if I had, he would sooner have believed that I took
him for a cully that would swallow such an improbability, than
that I was still mistress of that darling treasure, that hidden
mine, so eagerly sought after by the men, and which they never
dig for, but to destroy.
Being now too high wound up to bear a delay, he unbuttoned,
and drawing out the engine of love assaults, drove it currently,
as at a ready made breach... Then! then! for the first time, did I
feel that stiff horn-hard gristle, battering against the tender part;
but imagine to yourself his surprise, when he found, after
several vigorous pushes, which hurt me extremely, that he made
not the least impression.
I complained, but tenderly complained: "I could not bear it...
indeed he hurt me!..." Still he thought no more, than that being
so young, the largeness of his machine (for few men could
dispute size with him) made all the difficulty; and that possibly I
had not been enjoyed by any so advantageously made in that
part as himself: for still, that my virgin flower was yet un-
cropped, never entered into his head, and he would have
thought it idling with time and words, to have questioned me
upon it.
He tried again, still no admittance, still no penetration; but he
had hurt me yet more, while my extreme love made me bear
extreme pain, almost without a groan. At length, after repeated
fruitless trials, he lay down panting by me, kissed my falling
tears, and asked me tenderly "what was the meaning of so much
complaining? and if I had not borne it better from other than I
did from him?" I answered, with a simplicity framed to
persuade, that he was the first mam that ever served me so.
Truth is powerful, and it is not always that we do not believe
what we eagerly wish.
Charles, already disposed by the evidence, of his senses to
think my pretences to virginity not entirely apocryphal, smothers
me with kisses, begs me, in the-name of love, to have a little
patience, and that he wilt be as tender of hurting me as he
would be of himself..
Alas! it was enough I knew his pleasure to submit joyfully to
him, whatever pain I foresaw it would cost, me.
He now resumes his attempts in more form: first, he put one
of the pillows under me, to give the blank of his aim a more
favourable elevation, and another Under my head, in ease of it;
then spreading my thighs, and placing himself standing betwen
them, made them rest upon his; applying then the point of his
machine to the slit, into which he sought entrance, it was so
small, he could scarce assure himself of its being rightly pointed.
He looks, he feels, and satisfies himself: there driving on with
fury, its prodigious stiffness, thus impacted, wedgelike, breaks
the union of those parts, and gained him just the insertion of the
tip of it, lip deep; which being sensible of, he improved his
advantage, and following well his stroke, in a straight line,
forcibly deepens his penetration; but put me to such intolerable
pain, from the separation of the sides of that soft passage by a
hard thick body, I could have screamed out; but, as I was
unwilling to alarm the house, I held in my breath, and crammed
my petticoat, which was; turned up over my face, into my
mouth, and bit it through in the agony. At length, the tender
texture of that tract giving way to such fierce tearing and
rending, he pierced something further into me: and now,
outrageous and no longer his own master, but borne headlong
away by the fury and over-mettle of that member, now exerting
itself with a kind of native rage, he breaks in, carries all before
him, and one violent merciless lunge, sent it, imbrued, and
reeking with virgin blood, up to the very hilt in me... Then! then
all my resolution deserted me: I screamed out, and fainted away
with the sharpness of the pain; and, as he told me afterwards,
on his drawing out, when emission was over with him, my
thighs were instantly all in a stream of blood, that flowed from
the wounded torn passage.
When I recovered my senses, I found myself undressed and a-
bed, in the arms of the sweet relenting murderer of my virginity,
who hung mourning tenderly over me, and holding in his hand a
cordial, which, coming from the still dear author of so much
pain, I could not refuse; my eyes, however, moistened with
tears, and languishingly turned upon him, seemed to reproach
him with his cruelty, and ask him, if such were the rewards of
love. But Charles, to whom I was now infinitely endeared by his
complete triumph over a maidenhead, where he so little
expected to find one, in tenderness to that pain which he had
put me to, in procuring himself the height of pleasure,
smothered his exultation, and employed himself with so much
sweetness, so much warmth, to sooth, to caress, and comfort me
in my soft complainings, which breathed, indeed, more love than
resentment, that I presently drowned all sense of pain in the
pleasure of seeing him, of thinking that I belonged to him: he
who was now the absolute disposer of my happiness, and, in one
word, my fate.
The sore was, however, too tender, the wound too bleeding
fresh, for Charles's good-nature to put my patience presently to
another trial; but as I could not stir, or walk a-cross the room,
he ordered the dinner to be brought to the bed side, where it
could not be otherwise than my getting down the wing of a fowl,
and two or three glasses of wine, since it was my adored youth
who both served, and urged them on me, with that sweet
irresistible authority with which love had invested him over me.
After dinner, and everything but the wine was taken away,
Charles very impudently asks a leave, he might read the grant of
in my eyes, to come to bed to me, and accordingly falls to
undressing; which I could not see the progress of without
strange emotions of fear and pleasure.
He is now in bed with me the first time, and in broad day; but
when thrusting up his own shirt and my shift, he laid his naked
glowing body to mine... oh insupportable delight! oh!
superhuman rapture! what pain could stand before a pleasure so
transporting? I felt no more the smart of my wounds below; but,
curling round him like the tendril of a vine, as if I feared any
part of him should be untouched or unpressed by me, I returned
his strenuous embraces and kisses with a fervour and gust only
known to true love, and which mere lust never rise to.
Yes, even at this time, that all the tyranny of the passions is
fully over, and that my veins roll no longer but a cold tranquil
stream, the remembrance of those passages that most affected
me in my youth, still cheers and refreshes me; let me proceed
then. My beauteous youth was now glued to me in all the folds
and twists that we could make our bodies meet in; when, no
longer able to rein in the fierceness of refreshed desires, he gives
his steed the head, and gently insinuating his thighs between
mine, stopping my mouth with kisses of humid fire, makes a
fresh eruption, and renewing his thrusts, pierces, tears, and
forces his way up the torn tender folds, that yielded him
admission with a smart little less severe that when the breach
was first made I stifled, however, my cries, and bore him with
the passive fortitude of an heroine; soon his thrusts, more and
more furious, cheeks flushed with a deeper scarlet, his eyes
turned up in the fervent fit, some dying sighs, and an agonizing
shudder, announced the approaches of that extatic pleasure, I
was yet in too much pain to come in for my share of.
Nor was it till after a few enjoyments had numbed and
blunted the sense of the smart, and given me to feel the
titillating inspersion of balsamic sweets, drew from me the
delicious return, and brought down all my passion, that I arrived
at excess of pleasure through excess of pain. But, when
successive engagements had broke and inured me, I began to
enter into the true unalloyed relish of that pleasure of pleasures,
when the warm gush darts through all the ravished inwards;
what floods of bliss! what melting transports! what agonies of
delight! too fierce, too mighty for nature to sustain?... well has
she therefore, no doubt provided the relief of a delicious
momentary dissolution, the approaches of which are intimated
by a dear delirium, a sweet thrill, on the point of emitting those
liquid sweets, in which enjoyment itself is drowned, when one
gives the languishing stretch out, and die at the discharge.
 How often, when the rage and tumult of my senses had
subsided, after the melting flow, have I, in a tender meditation,
asked myself cooly the question, if it was in nature for any of its
creatures to be so happy as I was? Or, what were all fears of the
consequence, put in the scale of one night's enjoyment, of any
thing so transcendently the taste of my eyes and heart, as that
delicious, fond, matchless youth.
Thus we spent the whole afternoon, till supper time in a
continued circle of love delights, kissing, turtle-billing, toying,
and all the rest of the feast. At length, supper was served in,
before which Charles had, for I do not know what reason,
slipped his clothes on; and sitting down by the bed side, we
made table and tablecloth of the bed and sheets, whilst he
suffered nobody to attend or serve but himself. He ate with a
very good appetite, and seemed charmed to see me eat. For my
part, I was so transported with the comparison of the delights I
now swam in, with the insipidity of all my past scenes of life,
that I thought them sufficiently cheap, at even the price of my
ruin, or the risk of their not lasting. The present possession was
all my little head could find room for.
We lay together that night, when, after playing repeated prizes
of pleasure, nature, overspent and satisfied, gave us up to the
arms of sleep: those of my dear youth encircled me, the
consciousness of which made even that sleep more delicious.
Late in the morning I waked, first; and observing my lover
slept profoundly, softly disengaged myself from his arms,
scarcely daring to breathe, for fear of shortening his repose; my
cap, my hair, my shift, were all in disorder, from the rufflings I
had undergone; and I took this opportunity to adjust and set
them as well as I could: whilst, every now and then, looking at
the sleeping youth, with inconceivable fondness and delight, and
reflecting on all the pain he had put me to, tacitly owned that
the pleasure had overpaid me for my sufferings.
It was then broad day. I was sitting up in the bed, the clothes
of which were all tossed, or rolled off, by the unquietness of our
motions, from the sultry heat of the weather; nor could I refuse
myself a pleasure that solicited me so irresistibly, as this fair
occasion of feasting my sight with all those treasures of youthful
beauty I had enjoyed, and which lay now almost entirely naked,
his shirt being trussed up in a perfect wisp, which the warmth of
the season and room made me easy about the consequence of. I
hung over him enamoured indeed! and devoured all his naked
charms with only two eyes, when I could have wished them at
least an hundred for the fuller enjoyment of the gaze.
Oh! could I paint his figure as I see it now, still present to my
transported imagination! a whole length of an all perfect manly
beauty in full view. Think of a face without a fault, glowing with
all the opening bloom and verdant freshness of an age, in which
beauty is of either sex, and which the first down over his upper
lip scarce began to distinguish.
The parting of the double ruby pout of his lips seemed to
exhale an air sweeter and purer than what it drew in: ah! what
violence did it not cost me to refrain the so tempted kiss!
Then a neck exquisitely turned, graved behind and on the
sides with fais hair, playing freely in natural ringlets, connected
his head to a body of the most perfect form, and of the most
vigorous contexture, in which all the strength of manhood was
concealed, and softened to appearance by the delicacy of his
complexion, the smoothness of his skin, and the plumpness of
his flesh.
The platform of his snow white bosom, that was laid out in a
manly proportion, presented, on the vermilion summit of each
pap, the idea of a rose about to blow.
Nor did his shirt hinder me from observing the symmetry of
his limbs, that exactness of shape, in the fall of it towards the
loins, where the waist ends and the rounding swell of the hips
commences; where the skin, sleek, smooth, and dazzling white,
burnishes on; the stretch-over firm, plump, ripe flesh, that
crimped' and ran into dimples at the least pressure, or that the
touch could not rest upon, but slid over on the surface of the
most polished ivory.
 His thighs, finely fashioned, and with a florid glossy
roundness, gradually tapering away to the knees, seemed pillars
worthy to support that beauteous frame at the bottom of which I
could not, without some remains of terror, some tender emotions
too, fix my eyes on that terrible machine, which had, not long
before, with such fury broke into, torn, and almost ruined those
soft, tender parts of mine, that had not yet done smarting with
the effects of its rage; but behold it now! crest fallen, reclining
its half-caped vermilion head over one of his thighs, quiet,
pliant, and to all appearances incapable of the mischiefs and
cruelty it had committed. Then the beautiful growth of the hair,
in short and soft curls round its roots, its whiteness, branched
veins, the supple softness of the shaft, as it lay foreshortened,
rolled and shrunk up into a squat thickness, languid, and borne
up from between his thighs, by its globular appendage, that
wondrous treasure bag of nature's sweets, which revelled round,
and pursed up in the only wrinkles that are known to please,
perfected the prospect, and altogether formed the most
interesting moving picture in nature, and surely infinitely
superior to those nudities furnished by the painters, statuaries,
or any art, which are purchased at immense prices; whilst the
sight of them in actual life is scarce sovereignly tasted by any
but the few whom nature has endowed with a fire of
imagination, warmly pointed by a truth of judgment to the
spring-head, the originals of beauty, of nature's unequalled
composition, above all the imitations of art, or the reach of
wealth to pay their price.
But every thing must have an end. A motion made by this
angelic youth, in the listlessness of goingoff sleep, replaced his
shirt and the bed clothes in a posture that shut up that treasury
from longer view.
I lay down then, and carrying my hands to that part of me in
which the objects just seen had begun to raise a mutiny, that
prevailed over the smart of them, my fingers now opened
themselves an easy passage; but long I had not time to consider
the wide difference there, between the maid and the now
finished woman, before Charles waked, and turning towards me,
kindly enquired how I had rested? and, scarce giving me time to
answer, imprinted on my lips one of his burning rapture kisses,
which darted a flame to my heart, that from thence radiated to
every part of me; and presently, as if he had proudly meant
revenge for the survey I had smuggled of all his naked beauties,
he spurns off the bed clothes, and trussing up my shift as high
as it would go, took his turn to feast his eyes on all the gifts
nature had bestowed on my person; his busy hands, too, ranged
intemperately over every part of me. The delicious austerity and
hardness of my yet unripe budding breasts, the whiteness and
firmness of my flesh, the freshness and regularity of my features,
the harmony of my limbs, all seemed to confirm him in his
satisfaction with his bargain; but when curious to explore the
havock he had made in the centre of his over fierce attack, he
not only directed his hands there, but with a pillow put under,
placed me favourably for his wanton purpose of inspection.
Then, who can express the fire his eyes glistened, his hands
glowed with! whilst sighs of pleasure, and tender broken
exclamations, were all the praises he could utter. By this time
his machine, stiffly risen at me, gave me to see it in its highest
state and bravery. He feels it himself, seems pleased at its
condition, and, smiling loves and graces, seizes one of my hands,
and carries it, with gentle compulsion, to this pride of nature,
and its richest master piece.
I, struggling faintly, could not help feeling what I could not
grasp, a column of the whitest ivory, beautifully streaked with
blue veins, and carrying, fully un-capt, a head of the liveliest
vermilion: no horn could be harder or stiffer; yet no velvet more
smooth or delicious to the touch. Presently he guided my hand
lower, to that part in which nature, and pleasure keep their
stores in concert, so aptly fastened and hung on to the root of
their first instrument and minister, that not improperly he might
be styled their purse-bearer too: there he made me feel
distinctly, through their soft cover, the contents, a pair of
roundish balls, that seemed to play within, and elude all
pressure, but the tenderest, from without.
 But now this visit of my soft, warm hand, in those so sensible
parts, had put every thing into such ungovernable fury,
disdaining all further preluding, and taking advantage of my
commodious posture, he made the storm fall where I scarce
patiently expected, and where he was sure to lay it: presently,
then, I felt the stiff intersection betwen the yielding, divided lips
of the wound, now open for life; where the narrowness no longer
put me to intolerable pain, and afforded my lover no more
difficulty than what heightened his pleasure, in the strict
embrace of that tender, warm sheath, round the instrument it
was so delicately adjusted to, and which now cased home, so
gorged me with pleasure, that it perfectly suffocated me and
took away my breath; then the killing thrusts! the unnumbered
kisses! every one of which was a joy inexpressible; and that joy
lost in a crowd of yet greater blisses! But this was a disorder too
violent in nature to last long: the vessels, so stirred and
intensely heated, soon boiled over, and for that time put out the
fire; meanwhile all this dalliance and disport had so far
consumed the morning, that it became a kind of necessity to lay
breakfast and dinner into one.
In our calmer intervals Charles gave the following account of
himself, every tittle of which was true. He was the only son of a
father, who, having a small post in the revenue, rather overlived
his income, and had given this young gentleman a very slender
education: no profession had he bred him up to, but designed to
provide for him in the army, by purchasing him an ensign's
commission, that is to say, provided he could raise the money,
or procure it by interest, either of which clauses was rather to be
wished than hoped for by him. On no better a plan, however,
had his improvident father suffered this youth, a youth of great
promise, to run up to the age of manhood, or near it at least, in
next to idleness; and had, besides, taken no sort of pains to give
him even the common premonitions against the vices of the
town, and the dangers of all sorts which wait the unexperienced
and unwary in it. He lived at home, and at discretion with his
father, who himself kept a mistress; and for the rest, provided
Charles did not ask him for money, he was indolently kind to
him: he might lie out when he pleased, any excuse would serve,
and even his reprimands were so slight, that they carried with
them rather an air of connivance at the fault, than any serious
control or constraint. But, to supply his calls for money, Charles,
whose mother was dead, had, by her side, a grandmother, who
doated upon him. She had a considerable annuity to live on, and
very regularly parted with every shilling she could spare, to this
darling of her's, to the no little heart-burn of his father; who was
vexed, not that she, by this means, fed his son's extravagance,
but that she preferred Charles to himself; and we shall too soon
see what a fatal turn such a mercenary jealousy could operate on
the breast of a father.
Charles was, however, by the means of his grandmother's
lavish fondness, very sufficiently enabled to keep a mistress, so
easily contented as my love made me; and my good fortune, for
such I must ever call it, threw me in his way, in the manner
above related, just as he was on the look-out for one.
As to temper, the even sweetness of it made him seem born
for domestic happiness: tender, naturally polite, and gentle-
manner'd; it could never be his fault, if ever jars, or animosities
ruffled a calm he was so qualified every way to maintain or
restore. Without those great or shining qualities that constitute a
genius, or are fit to make a noise in the world, he had all those
humble ones that compose the softer social merit: plain common
sense, set off with every grace of modesty and good nature,
made him, if not admired, what is much happier: universally
beloved and esteemed. But, as nothing but the beauties of his
person had at first attracted my regard and fixed my passion,
neither was I then a judge of the internal merit, which I had
afterwards full occasion to discover, and which, perhaps, in that
season of giddiness and levity, would have touched my heart
very little, had it been lodged in a person less the delight of my
eyes, and idol of my senses. But to return to our situation.
After dinner, which we ate a-bed in most voluptuous disorder,
Charles got up, and taking a passionate leave of me for a few
hours, went to town, where concerting matters with a young
sharp lawyer, they went together to my late venerable mistress's,
from whence I had, but the day before, made my elopement, and
with whom he was determined to settle accounts, in a manner
that should cut off all after reckonings from that quarter.
Accordingly they went; but by the way, the Templar, his
friend, on thinking over Charles's information, saw reason to
give their visit another turn, and, instead of offering satisfaction,
to demand it.
On being let in, the girls of the house flocked round Charles,
whom they knew, and from the earlyness of my escape, and
their perfect ignorance of his ever having so much as seen me,
not having the least suspicion of his being accessory to my flight,
they were, in their way, making up to him; and as to his
companion, they took him probably for a fresh cully. But the
Templar soon checked their forwardness, by enquiring for the
old lady, with whom he said, with a grave-like countenance, that
he had some business to settle.
Madam was immediately sent for down, and the ladies being
desired to clear the room, the lawyer asked her, severely, if she
did know, or had not decoyed, under pretence of hiring as a
servant, a young girl, just come out of the country, called
Frances or Fanny Hill, describing me withal as particularly as he
could from Charlie's description.
It is peculiar to vice to tremble at the enquiries of justice; and
Mrs. Brown, whose conscience was not entirely clear upon my
account, as knowing as she was of the town as hackneyed as she
was in bluffing through all the dangers of her vocation, could
not help being alarmed at the questions, especially when he
went on to talk of a Justice of peace, Newgate, the Old Bailey,
indictments for keeping a disorderly house, pillory, carting, and
the whole process of that nature. She, who, it is likely, imagined
I had lodged an information against her house, looked extremely
blank, and began to make a thousand protestations and excuses.
However, to abridge, they brought away triumphantly my box of
things, which, had she not ben under an awe, she might have
disputed with them; and not only that, but a clearance and
discharge of any demands on the house, at the expense of no
more than a bowl of arrack-punch, the treat of which, together
with the choice of the house conveniences, was offered and not
accepted. Charles all the time acted the chance companion of the
lawyer, who had brought him there, as he knew the house, and
appeared in no wise interested in the issue; but he had the
collateral pleasure of hearing all that I told him verified, as far
as the bawd's fears would give her leave to enter into my
history, which, if one may guess by the composition she so
readily came into, were not small.
Phoebe, my kind tutoress Phoebe, was at the time gone out,
perhaps in search of me, or their cooked-up story had not, it is
probable, passed smoothly.
This negociation had, however, taken up some time, which
would have appeared much longer to me, left as I was, in a
strange house, if the landlady, a motherly sort of a woman, to
whom Charles had liberally recommended me, had not come up
and borne me company. We drank tea, and her chat helped to
pass away the time very agreeably, since he was our theme; but
as the evening deepened, and the hour set for his return was
elapsed, I could not dispel the gloom of impatience, and tender
fears which gathered upon me, and which our timid sex are apt
to feel in proportion to their love.
Long, however, I did not suffer: the sight of him over-paid me;
and the soft reproach I had prepared for him, expired before it
reached my lips.
I was still a-bed, yet unable to use my legs otherwise than
awkwardly, and Charles flew to me, catches me in his arms,
raised and extending mine to meet his dear embrace, and gives
me an account, interrupted by many a sweet parenthesis of
kisses, of the success of his measures.
I could not help laughing at the fright of the old woman had
been put into, which my ignorance, and indeed my want of
innocence, had far from prepared me from bespeaking. She had,
it seems, apprehended that I fled the shelter to some relation I
had recollected in town, on my dislike of their ways and
proceedings towards me, and that this application came from
thence; for, as Charles had rightly judged, not one neighbour
had, at that still hour, seen the circumstance of my escape into
the coach, or, at least, noticed him; neither had any in the
house, the least hint of suspicion of my having spoken to him,
much less of my having clapt up such a sudden bargain with a
perfect stranger, thus the greatest improbability is not always
what we should most mistrust.
We supped with all the gaiety of two young giddy creatures at
the top of their desires; and as I had given up to Charles the
whole charge of my future happiness, I thought of nothing
beyond the exquisite pleasure of possessing him.
He came to bed in due time; and this second night, the pain
being pretty well over, I tasted, in full draught, all the transports
of perfect enjoyment: I swam, I bathed in bliss, till both fell
asleep, through the natural consequences of satisfied desires,
and appeased flames; nor did we wake but to renewed raptures.
Thus, making the most of love, and life did we stay in this
lodging in Chelsea about ten days; in which time Charles took
care to give his excursions from home a favourable gloss, and to
keep his footing with his fond indulgent grand-mother, from
whom he drew constant and sufficient supplies for the charge I
was to him, and which was very trifling, in comparison with his
former less regular course of pleasure.
Charles removed me then to a private ready furnished lodging
in D.... street, St. James's, where he paid half a guinea a week
for two rooms and a closet on the second floor, which he had
been some time looking out for, and was more convenient for
the frequency of his visits, than where he had at first placed me,
in a house, which I cannot say but I left with regret, as it was
infinitely endeared to me by the first possession of my Charles,
and the circumstance of losing, there, that jewel, which can
never be twice lost. The landlord, however, had no reason to
complain of any thing, but of a procedure in Charles too liberal
not to make him regret the loss of us.
 Arrived at our new lodging, I remember I thought them
extremely fine, though ordinary enough, even at that price; but,
had it been a dungeon that Charles had brought me to, his
presence would have made a little Versailles.
The landlady, Mrs. Jones, waited on us to our apartment, and
with great volubility of tongue, explained to us all its
conveniences: "that her own maid should wait on us... that the
best of quality had lodged at her house... that her first floor was
let to a foreign secretary of an embassy, and his lady... that I
looked like a very good natured lady..." At the word lady, I
blushed out of flattered vanity: this was strong for a girl of my
condition; for though Charles had the precaution of dressing me
in a less tawdry flaunting style than were the clothes I escaped
to him in, and of passing me for his wife, that she had secretly
married, and kept private (the old story) on account of his
friends, I dare swear this appeared extremely apocryphal to a
woman who knew the town so well as she did; but that was the
least of her concern: it was impossible to be less scruple-ridden
than she was; and the advantage of letting her rooms being her
sole object, the truth itself would have far from scandalized her,
or broke her bargain.
A sketch of her picture, and personal history, will dispose you
to account for the part she is to act in my concern.
She was about forty six years old, tall, meagre, red-haired,
with one of those trivial ordinary faces you meet with every
where, and go about unheeded and un-mentioned. In her youth
she had been kept by a gentleman, who, dying, left her forty
pounds a year during her life, in consideration of a daughter he
had by her: which daughter, at the age of seventeen, she sold,
for not a very considerable sum neither, to a gentleman who was
going on envoy abroad, and took his purchase with him, where
he used her with the utmost tenderness, and it is thought, was
secretly married to her: but had constantly made a point of her
not keeping up the least correspondence with a mother base
enough to make a market of her own flesh and blood. However,
as she had not nature, nor, indeed, any passion but that of
money, this gave her no further uneasiness, then, as she thereby
lost a handle of squeezing pres-sents, or other after-advantages,
out of the bargain. Indifferent then, by nature of constitution, to
every other pleasure but that of increasing the lump, by any
means whatever, she commenced a kind of private procuress, for
which she was not amiss fitted, by her grave decent appearance,
and sometimes did a job in the match-making way; in short,
there was, nothing that appeared to her under the shape of gain,
that she would not have undertaken. She knew most of the ways
of the town, having not only herself been upon, but kept up
constant intelligences in promoting a harmony between the two
sexes, in private pawn-broking, and other profitable secrets. She
rented the house she lived in, and made the most of it, by letting
it out in lodgings; though she was worth, at least, near three or
four thousand pounds, she would not allow herself even the
necessaries, of life, and pinned her subsistence entirely on what
she could squeeze out of her lodgers.
When she saw such a young pair come under her roof, her
immediate notions, doubtless, were how she should make the
most money of us, by every means that money might be made,
and which, she rightly judged, our situations and inexperience
would soon beget her occasions of.
In this hopeful sanctuary, and under the clutches of this
harpy, did we pitch our residence. It will not be might material
to you, or very pleasant to me, to enter into a detail of all the
petty cut-throat ways and means with which she used to fleece
us; all which Charles indolently chose to bear with, rather than
take the trouble of removing, the difference of expense being
scarce attended to by a young gentleman who had no ideas of
stint, or even economy, and a raw country girl who knew
nothing of the matter.
Here, however, under the wings of my sovereignly beloved,
did the most delicious hours of my life flow on; my Charles I
had, and, in him, every thing my fond heart could wish or
desire. He carried me to plays, operas, masquerades, and every
diversion of the town; all which pleased me, indeed, but pleased
me infinitely the more for his being with me, and explaining
every thing to me, and enjoying perhaps, the natural impressions
of surprise and admiration, which such sights, at the first, never
fail to excite in a country girl, new to the delights of them; but
to me, they sensibly proved the power and dominion of the sole
passion of my heart over me, a passion in which soul and body
were concentered, and left me no room for any other relish of
life but love.
As to the men I saw at those places, or at any other, they
suffered so much in the comparison my eyes made of them with
my all-perfect Adonis, that I had not the infidelity even of one
wandering thought to reproach myself with upon his account. He
was the universe to me, and all that was not him, was nothing to
me.
My love, in fine, was so excessive, that is arrived at
annihilating every suggestion or kindling spark of jealousy; for,
one idea only, tending that way, gave me such exquisite torment,
that my self-love, and dread of worse than death, made me for
ever renounce and defy it: nor had I, indeed, occasion; for, were
I to enter here on the recital of several instances wherein Charles
sacrificed to me women of much greater importance than I dare
hint (which, considering his form, was no such wonder), I might,
indeed, give you full proof of his unshaken constancy to me; but
would not you accuse me of warming up against a feast, which
my vanity ought long ago to have been satisfied with?
In our cessations from active pleasure, Charles framed himself
one, in instructing me, as far as his own lights reached, in a
great many points of life, that I was, in consequence of my no-
education, perfectly ignorant of: nor did I suffer one word to fall
in vain from the mouth of my lovely teacher: I hung on every
syllable he uttered, and received, as oracles, all he said; whilst
kisses were all the interruption I could not refuse myself the
pleasure of admitting, from lips that breathed more than Arabian
sweetness, I was in a little time enabled, by the progress I had
made, to prove the deep regard I had paid to all that he had said
to me: repeating it to him almost word for word; and to shew
that I was not entirely the parrot, but that I reflected upon, that
I entered into it, I joined my own comments, and asked him
questions of explanation.
My country accent, and the rusticity of my gait, manners, and
deportment, began now sensibly to wear off: so quick was my
observation, and so efficacious my desire of growing every day
worthier of his heart.
As to money, though, he brought me constantly all he
received, it was with difficulty he even got me to give it room in
my bureau; and what clothes I had, he could prevail on me to
accept of on no other foot, than that of pleasing him by the
greater neatness in my dress, beyond which I had no ambition. I
could have made a pleasure of the greatest toil, and worked my
fingers to the bone, with joy, to have supported him: guess,
then, if I could harbour any idea of being burthensome to him,
and this disinterested turn in me was so unaffected, so much the
dictate of my heart, that Charles could not but feel it: and if he
did not love me as much as I did him (which was the constant
and only matter of sweet contention between us), he managed
so, at least, as to give me the satisfaction of believing it
impossible for man to be more tender, more true, more faithful
than he was.
Our landlady, Mrs. Jones, came frequently up to my
apartment, from whence I never stirred on any pretext without
Charles; nor was it long before she wormed out, without much
art, the secret of our having cheated the church of a ceremony,
and, in course, of the terms we lived together upon; a
circumstance which far from displeased her, considering the
designs she had upon me, and which, alas! she will have too
soon, room to carry into execution. But in the meantime, her
own experience of life let her see, that any attempt, however
indirect or disguised, to divert or break, at least presently, so
strong a cement of hearts as ours was, could only end in losing
two lodgers, of whom she had made very competent advantages,
if either of us came to smoke her commission, for a commission
she had from one of her customers, either to debauch, or get me
away from my keeper at any rate.
But the barbarity of my fate soon saved her the task of
disuniting us. I had now been eleven months with this life of my
life, which had passed in one continued rapid stream of delight:
but nothing so violent was ever made to last. I was about three
months gone with a child by him, a circumstances would have
added to his tenderness, had he ever left me room to believe it
could receive an addition, when the mortal, the unexpected blow
of separation fell upon us. I shall gallop post-over the
particulars, which I shudder yet to think of, and cannot; to this
instant, reconcile myself how, or by what means I could out-live
it.
Two live-long days had I lingered through without hearing
from him, I who breathed, who existed but in him, and had
never yet seen twenty-four hours pass without seeing or hearing
from him. The third day my impatience was so strong, my
alarms had been so severe, that I perfectly sickened with them;
and being unable to support the shock longer, I sunk upon the
bed, and ringing for Mrs. Jones, who had far from comforted me
under my anxieties, she came up, and I had scarce breath and
spirit enough to find words to beg of her, if she would save my
life, to fall upon some means of finding out, instantly, what was
become of its only prop and comfort. She pitied me in a way
that rather sharpened my affliction than suspended it, and went
out upon this commission.
For she had but to go to Charles's house, who lived but an
easy distance, in one of the streets that run into Covent Garden.
There she went into a public house, and from thence sent for a
mid servant, whose name I had given her, as the properest to
inform her.
The maid readily came, and as readily, when Mrs. Jones
enquired of her what had become of Mr. Charles, or whether he
was gone out of town, acquainted her with the disposal of her
master's son, which, the very day after, was no secret to the
servants. Such sure measures had he taken, for the most cruel
punishment of his child for having more interest with his
grandmother than he had, though he made use of a pretence,
plausible enough, to get rid of him in this secret abrupt manner,
for fear her fondness should have interposed a bar to his leaving
England, and proceeding on a voyage he had concerted for him;
which pretext was, that it was indispensably necessary to secure
a considerable inheritance that devolved to him by the death of a
rich merchant (his own brother) at one of the factories in the
South Seas, of which he had lately received advice, together with
a copy of the will.
In consequence of which resolution, to send away his son, he
had, unknown to him, made the necessary preparations for
fitting him out, struck a bargain with the captain of a ship,
whose punctual execution of his orders he had secured, by his
interest with his principal owners and patron; and, in short,
concerted his measures so secretly, and effectually, that whilst
the son thought he was going down to the river, that would take
him a few hours, he was stopt on board of a ship, debarred from
writing, and more strictly watched than a State criminal.
Thus was the idol of my soul torn from me, and forced on a
long voyage, without taking leave of one friend, or receiving one
line of comfort, except a dry explanation and instructions, from
his father, how to proceed when he should arrive at his destined
port, enclosing, withal, some letters of recommendation to a
factor there: all these particulars I did not learn minutely till
some time after.
The maid, at the same time, added, that she was sure this
usage of her sweet young master would be the death of his
grand-mamma, as indeed it proved true; for the old lady, on
hearing it, did not survive the news a whole month, and as her
fortune consisted in an annuity, out of which she had laid up no
reserves, she left nothing worth mentioning to her so fatally
envied darling, but absolutely refused to see his father before
she died.
When Mrs. Jones returned, and I observed her looks, they
seemed so unconcerned, and even nearest to pleased, that I half
flattered myself she was going to set my tortured heart at ease,
by bringing me good news; but this, indeed, was a cruel delusion
of hope: the barbarian, with all the coolness imaginable, stabs
me to the heart, in telling me, succinctly, that he was sent away,
at least, on a four years' voyage (here she stretched maliciously),
and that I could not expect, in reason, ever to see him again:
and all this with such pregnant circumstances, that I could not
escape giving them credit, as they were, indeed, too true!
She had hardly finished her report before I fainted away, and
after several successive fits, all the while wild and senseless, I
miscarried of the dear pledge of my Charles's love; but the
wretched never die when it is fittest they should die, and women
are hard-lived! to a proverb.
The cruel and interested care taken to recover me, saved an
odious life: which, instead of the happiness and joys it had
overflower in, all of a sudden presented no view before me of
any thing but the depth of misery, horror, and the sharpest
affliction.
Thus I lay six weeks, in the struggles of youth and
constitution, against the friendly efforts of death, which I
constantly invoked to my relief and deliverance, but which
proved too weak for my wish. I recovered at length, but into a
state of stupefaction and despair, that threatened me with the
loss of my senses, and a mad house.
Time, however, that great comforter in ordinary, began to
assuage the violence of my suffering, and to-numb my feeling of
them. My health returned to me, though I still retained an air of
grief, dejection, and languor, which taking off from the
ruddiness of my country complexion, rendered it rather more
delicate and affecting.
The landlady had all this while officiously provided, and seen
that I wanted for nothing: and as soon as she saw me retrieved
into a condition of answering her purpose, one day, after we had
dined together, she congratulated me on my recovery, the merit
of which she took entirely to herself, and all this by way of
introduction to a most terrible, and scurvy epilogue: "You are
now," says she, "Miss Fanny, tolerably well, and you are very
welcome to stay in these lodgings as; long as you please! you see
I have asked you for nothing this long time, but truly I have a
call to make up a sum of money, which must be answered." And,
with that, presents me with a bill of arrears for rent, diet,
apothecaries' charges, nurse, etc., sum total twenty-three
pounds, seventeen and six-pence: towards discharging of which I
had not in the world (which she well knew) more than seven
guineas, left by chance, of my dear Charles's common stock,
with me. At the same time, she desired me to tell her what
course I would take for payment. I burst out into a flood of
tears, and told her my condition: that I would sell what few
clothes I had, and that, for the rest, would pay her as soon as
possible. But my distress, being favourable to her view, only
stiffened her the more.
She told me, very cooly, that "she was indeed sorry for my
misfortunes, but that she must do herself justice, though it
would go to the very heart of her to send such a tender young
creature to prison...." At the word "prison!" every drop of my
blood chilled, and my fright acted so strongly upon me, that,
turning as pale and faint as a criminal at the first sight of his
place of execution, I was on the point of swooning. My landlady,
who wanted only to terrify me to a certain point, and not to
throw me into a state of body inconsistent with her designs upon
it, began to sooth me again, and told me, in a tone composed to
more pity and gentleness, that "it would be my own fault, if she
was forced to proceed to such extremities; but she believed there
was a friend to be found in the world, who would make up
matters to both our satisfactions, and that she would bring him
to drink tea with us that very afternoon, when she hoped we
would come to a right understanding in our affairs." To all this,
not a word of answer; I sat mute, confounded, terrified.
Mrs. Jones, however, judging rightly that it was time to strike
while the impressions were so strong upon me, left me to myself
and to all the terrors of an imagination, wounded to death by
the idea of going to prison, and, from a principle of self-
preservation, snatching at every glimpse of redemption from it.
In this situation I sat near half an hour, swallowed up in grief
and despair, when my landlady came in, and observing a death-
like dejection in my countenance, still in pursuance of her plan,
put on a false pity, and bidding me be of good heart: "Things,"
she said, "would be but my own friend"; and closed with telling
me "she had brought a very honourable gentleman to drink tea
with me, who would give me the best advice how to get rid of all
my troubles." Upon which, without waiting for a reply, she goes
out, and returns with this very honourable gentleman, whose
very honourable procuress she had been, on this, as well as
other occasions.
The gentleman, on his entering the room, made me a very civil
bow, which I had scarce strength, or presence of mind enough to
return a curtsey to; when the landlady, taking upon her to do all
the honours of the first interview (for I had never, that I
remember, seen the gentleman before), sets a chair for him,
another for herself. All this while not a word on either side; a
stupid stare was all the face I could put on this strange visit.
The tea was made, and the landlady, unwilling, I suppose, to
lose any time, observing my silence and shyness before this
entire stranger: "Come, Miss Fanny," says she, in a coarse
familiar style, and tone of authority, "hold up your head, child,
and do not let sorrow spoil that pretty face of yours. What!
sorrows are only for a time; come, be free, here is a worthy
gentleman who has heard of your misfortunes, and is willing to
serve you; you must be better acquainted with him, do not you
now stand upon your punctilios, and this and that, but make
your market while you may."
At this so delicate, and eloquent harangue, the gentleman,
who saw I loooked frighted and amazed, and, indeed, incapable
of answering, took her up for breaking things in so abrupt a
manner, as rather to shock than incline me to an acceptance of
the good he intended me then, addressing himself to me, told me
"he was perfectly acquainted with my whole story, and every
circumstance of my distress which he owned was a cruel plunge
for one of my youth and beauty to fall into.... that he had long
taken a liking to my person, for which he appealed to Mrs.
Jones, there present; but finding me so deeply engaged to
another, he had lost all hopes of succeeding, till he had heard
the sudden reverse of fortune that had happened to me, on
which he had given particular orders to my landlady to see that I
should want for nothing; and that, had he not been forced
abroad to the Hague, on affairs he could not refuse himself to,
he would himself have attended me during my sickness;... that
on his return, which was the day before, he had, on learning my
recovery, desired my landlady's good offices to introduce him to
me, and was as angry, at least, as I was shocked, at the manner
in which she had conducted herself towards obtaining him that
happiness; but, that to show me how much he disdained her
procedure, and how far he was from taking any ungenerous
advantage of my situation, and from exacting any security for
my gratitude, he would before my face, that instant, discharge
my debt entirely to my landlady, and give me her receipt in full;
after which I should be at liberty either to reject or grant his
suit, as he was much above putting any force upon my
inclinations."
Whilst he was exposing his sentiments to me, I ventured just
to look up to him, and observed his figure, which was that of a
very well-looking gentleman, well made, of about forty, dressed
in a suit of plain clothes, with a large diamond ring on one of his
fingers, the lustre of which played in my eyes as he waved his
hand in talking, and raised my notions of his importance. In
short, he might pass for what is commonly called a comely black
man, with an air of distinction natural to his birth and
condition.
To all his speeches, however, I answered only in tears that
flower plentifully to my relief, and choking up my voice, excused
me from speaking, very luckily, for I should not have known
what to say.
 The sight, however, moved him, as he afterwards told me,
irresistibly, and by way of giving me some reason to be less
powerfully afflicted, he drew out his purse, and calling for pen
and ink, which the landlady was prepared for, paid her every
farthing of her demand, independent of a liberal gratification
which was to follow unknown to me, and taking a receipt in full,
very tenderly forced me to secure it, by guiding my hand, which
he had thrust it into, so as to make me passively put it into my
pocket.
Still I continued in a state of stupidity, or melancholic despair,
as my spirits could not yet recover from the violent shocks that
they had received; and the accommodating landlady had actually
left the room, and me alone with this strange gentleman, before I
had observed it, and then I observed it without alarm, for I was
now lifeless, and indifferent to every thing.
The gentleman, however, no novice in affairs of this sort, drew
near me; and, under the pretence of comforting me, first with
his handkerchief dried my tears as they ran down my cheeks:
presently he ventured to kiss me on my part, neither resistance
nor compliance. I sat stock still; and now looking on myself as
bought by the payment that had been transacted before me.
I did not care what became of my wretched body: and wanting
life, spirits, or courage to oppose the least struggle, even that of
the modesty of my sex, I suffered, tamely, whatever the
gentleman pleased; who proceeding insensibly from freedom to
freedom, insinuating his hand between my handkerchief and
bosom, which he handled at discretion: finding thus no repulse,
and that every thing favoured, beyond expectation, the
completion of his desires, he took me in his arms, and bore me,
without life or motion, to the bed, on which laying me gently
downed, and having me at what advantage he pleased, I did not
so much as know what he was about, till recovering from a
trance of lifeless insensibility, I found him buried in me, whilst I
lay passive and innocent of the least sensations of pleasure: a
death-cold corpse could scarce have less life or sense in it. As
soon as he had thus pacified a passion which had too little
respected the condition I was in, he got off, and after
recomposing the disorder of my clothes, employed himself with
the utmost tenderness to calm the transports of remorse and
madness at myself, with which I was seized, too late, I confess,
for having suffered on that bed, the embraces of an utter
stranger I tore my hair, wrung my hands, and beat my breast
like a mad woman. But when my new master, for in that light I
then viewed him, applied himself to appease me, as my whole
rage was levelled at myself, no part of which I thought myself
permitted to aim at him, I begged of him with more submission
than anger, to leave me alone, that I might, at least, enjoy my
affliction in quiet. This he positively refused, for fear, as he
pretended, I should do myself a mischief. Violent passions
seldom last long, and those of women least of any. A dead still
calm succeeded this storm, which ended in a profuse shower of
tears.
Had any one, but a few instants before, told me that I should
have ever known any man but Charles, I would have spit in his
face or had I been offered infinitely a greater sum of money than
that I saw paid for me, I had spurned the proposal in cold blood.
But our virtues and our vices depend too much on our
circumstances; unexpectedly beset as I was, betrayed by a mind
weakened by a long severe affliction, and stunned with the
terrors of a goal, my defeat will appear the more excusable, since
I certainly was not present at, or a party in any sense to it.
However, as the first enjoyment is decisive, and he was now
over the bar, I thought I had no longer a right to refuse the
caresses of one that had got that advantage over me, no matter
how obtained; conforming myself then to this maxim, I
considered myself as so much in his power, that I endured his
kisses and embraces without affecting struggles or anger; not
that he, as yet, gave me any pleasure, or prevailed over the
aversion of my soul, to give myself up to any sensation of that
sort; what I suffered, I suffered out of a kind of gratitude, and as
a matter of course what had passed.
He was, however, so regardful as not to attempt the renewal
of those extremities which had thrown me, just before, into such
violent agitations; but, now secure of possession, contented
himself with bringing me to temper by degrees, and waiting at
the hand of time for those fruits of generosity and courtship,
which he since often reproached himself with having gathered
much too green, when, yielding to the inability to resist him, and
overborne by desires, he had wreaked his passion on a mere
lifeless, spiritless body, dead to all purpose of joy, since taking
none, it ought to be supposed incapable of giving any. This is,
however, certain; my heart never thoroughly forgave him the
manner in which I had fallen to him, although, in point of
interest, I had fallen to him, I had reason to be pleased that he
found, in my person, wherewithal to keep him from leaving me
as easily as he had had me.
The evening was, in the mean time, so far advanced, that the
maid came in to lay the cloth for supper, when I understood,
with joy, that my landlady, whose sight was present poison to
me, was not to be with us.
Presently a neat and elegant supper was introduced, and a
bottle of Burgundy, with the other necessaries, were set on a
dumb-waiter.
The maid quitting the room, the gentleman insisted, with a
tender warmth, that I should sit up in the elbow chair by the
fire, and see him eat, if I could not be prevailed on to eat myself.
I obeyed with a heart full or affliction, at the comparison it
made between those delicious tete-a-tetes with my very dear
youth, and this forced situation, this new awkward scene,
imposed and obtruded on me a cruel necessity.
At supper, after a great many arguments used to comfort and
reconcile me to my fate, he told me that his name was H...,
brother to the Earl of L.... and that having, by the suggestions of
my landlady, been led to see me, he had found me perfectly to
his taste, and given her a commission to procure me at any rate,
and that at length he had succeeded, as much to his satisfaction
as he passionately wished it might be to mine adding, withal,
some flattering assurances, that I should have no cause to repent
my knowledge of him.
 I had now got down at least half a partridge, and three or four
glasses of wine, which he compelled me to drink by way of
restoring nature, but whether there was any thing extraordinary
put into the wine, or whether there wanted no more to revive
the natural warmth of my constitution, and give fire to the old
train, I began no longer to look with that constraint, not to say
disguise, on Mr. H...., which I had hitherto done but, withal,
there was not the least grain of love mixed with this softening of
my sentiments: any other man would have been just the same to
me as Mr. H..., that stood in the same circumstances, and had
done for me, and with me, what he had done.
There are not, on earth at least, eternal griefs; mine were, if
not at an end, at least suspended: my heart, which had been so
long overloaded with anguish and vexation, began to dilate and
open to the last gleam of diversion or amusement. I wept a little,
and my tears relieved me; I sighed, and my sighs seemed to
lighten me of a load that oppressed me; my countenance grew, if
not cheerful, at least more composed and free.
Mr. H..., who had watched, perhaps brought on this change,
knew too well not to seize it: he thrust the table imperceptibly
from between us, and bringing his chair to face me, he soon
began, after preparing me by all the endearments of assurance
and protestations, to lay hold of my hands, to kiss me, and once
more to make free with my bosom, which, being at full liberty
from the disorder of a loose dishabile, now panted and
throbbed, less with indignation than with fear and bashfulness,
at being used so familiarly by still a stranger. But he soon gave
me greater occasion to exclaim, by stooping down and slipping
his hands above my garters; thence he strove to regain the pass,
which he had before found so open, and unguarded; but now he
could not unlock the twist of my thighs; I gently complained,
and begged him to let me alone; told him I was not well.
However, he saw there was more form and ceremony in my
resistance, than good earnest; he made his conditions for
desisting from pursuing his point, that I should be put instantly
to bed, whilst he gave certain orders to the landlady, and that he
would return in an hour, when he hoped to find me more
reconciled to his passion for me, than I seemed at present. I
neither assented nor denied, but my air and manner of receiving
his proposal, gave him to see that I did not think myself enough
my own mistress to refuse it.
Accordingly he went out and left me, when a minute or two
after, before I could recover myself into any composure for
thinking, the maid came in with her mistress's service, and a
small silver orringer of what she called a bridal posset, and
desired me to eat it as I went to bed, which consequently I did,
and felt immediately a heat, a fire run like a hue-and-cry through
every part of my body; I burnt, I glowed, and wanted even little
of wishing for any man.
The maid, as soon as I was lain down, took the candle away,
and wishing me a good night, went out of the room, and shut
the door after her.
She had hardly time to get down stairs, before Mr. H....
opened my room door softly, and came in, now undressed, in his
night-gown and cap, with two lighted wax candles, and bolting
the door, gave me, though I expected him, some sort of alarm.
He came a tip-toe to the bed side, and saying with a gentle
whisper: "Pray, my dear, do not be startled... I will be very
tender and kind to you." He then hurried off his clothes, and
leaped into bed, having given me openings enough, whilst he
was stripping, to observe his brawny structure, strong made
limbs, and rough shaggy breast.
The bed shook again when it received this new load. He lay on
the outside, where he kept the candles burning, no doubt for the
satisfaction of every sense, for as soon as he had kissed me, he
rolled down the bed clothes, and seemed transported with the
view of all my person at full length, which he covered with a
profusion of kisses, sparing no part of me. Then, being on his
knees between my thighs, he drew up his shirt, and bared all his
hairy thighs, and stiff staring truncheon, red top, and rooted
into a thicket of curls, which covered his belly to the novel, and
gave it the air of a flesh brush; and soon I feel it joining close to
mine, when he had drove the nail up to the head, and left no
partition but the intermediate hair on both sides.
I had it now, I felt it now, and, beginning to drive, he soon
gave nature such a powerful summons down to her favourite
quarters, that she could no longer refuse repairing thither; all my
animals spirits then rushed mechanically to that center of
attraction, and presently, inly warmed, and stirred as I was
beyond bearing, I lost all restraint, and yielding to the force of
the emotion, gave down, as mere woman, those effusions of
pleasure, which, in the strictness of still faithful love, I could
have wished to have kept in.
Yet oh! what an immense difference did I feel between this
impression of a pleasure merely animal, and struck out of the
collision of the sexes, by a passive bodily effect, from that sweet
fury, that rage of active delight which crowns the enjoyments of
a mutual love passion, where two hearts, tenderly and truly
united, club to exalt the joy, and give it a spirit and soul that
bids defiance to that end which mere momentary desires
generally terminate in, when they die of a surfeit of satisfaction!
Mr. H..., whom no distinctions of that sort seemed to distract,
scarce gave himself or me breathing time from the last
encounter, but, as if he had tasked himself to prove that the
appearances of his vigour were no signs hung out in vain, in a
few minutes he was in a condition for renewing the onset; to
which, preluding with a storm of kisses, he drove the same
course as before, with unbated fervour; and thus, in repeated
engagements, kept me constantly in exercise, till dawn of
morning, in all which time he made me fully sensible of the
virtues of his firm texture of limbs, his square shoulders, broad
chest, compact hard muscles, in short a system of manliness,
that might pass for no bad image of our ancient sturdy barons,
whose race is now so thoroughly refined and frittered away into
the more delicate and modern built frame of our pap-nerved
softlings, who are as pale, as pretty, and almost as masculine as
their sisters.
 Mr. H..., content, however, with having the day break upon
his triumph, resigned me up to the refreshment of a rest we both
wanted, and we soon dropped into a profound sleep.
Though he was some time awake before me, yet he did not
offer to disturb a repose he had given me so much occasion for;
but on my first stirring, which was not till past ten o'clock, I was
obliged to endure one more trial of his manhood.
About eleven, in came Mrs. Jones, with two basins of the
richest soup, which her experience in these matters had moved
her to prepare. I pass over the fulsome compliments, the cant of
the decent procuress, with which she saluted us both; but
though my blood rose at the sight of her, I supprest my
emotions, and gave all my concerne to reflections on what would
be the consequence of this new engagement.
But Mr. H..., who penetrated my uneasiness, did not suffer
me to languish under it, and acquainted me, that having taken a
solid sincere affection to me, he would begin by giving me one
leading mark of it, in removing me out of a house which must,
for many reasons, be irksome and disagreeable to me, into
convenient lodgings, where he would take all imaginable care of
me; and desiring not to have any explanations with my landlady,
or be impatient till he returned, he dressed and went out, having
left me a purse with two and twenty guineas in it, being all he
had about him, as he express it, to keep my pocket still further
supplied.
As soon as he was gone, I felt the usual consequence of the
first launch into vice (for my love attachment to Charles never
appeared to me in that light). I was instantly borne away down
the stream without making back to the shore. My dreadful
necessities, my gratitude, and above all, to say the plain truth,
the dissipation and diversion I began to find in this new
acquaintance, from the black corroding thoughts my heart had
been a prey to, ever since the absence of my dear Charles,
concurred to stun all my contrary reflections. If I now thought of
my first, my only charmer, it was still with the tenderness and
regret of the fondest love, embittered with the consciousness
that I was no longer worthy of him. I could have begged my
bread with him all over the world, but wretch that I was! I had
neither the virtue or courage requisite not to outlive my
separation from him.
Yet, had not my heart been thus preengaged, Mr. H... might
probably have been the sole master of it; but the place was full,
and the force of conjectures alone had made him the possessor
of my person; the charms of which had, by the bye, been his
sole object and passion, and were, of course, no foundation for a
love either very delicate or very durable.
He did not return till six in the evening', to take me away to
my new lodgings; and my moveables being soon packed, and
conveyed into a hackney coach, it cost me but little regret to
take my leave of a landlady whom I thought I had so much
reason not to be over pleased with; and as for her part, she
made no other difference to my staying or going, but what that
of the profit created.
We soon got to the house appointed for me, which was that of
a plain tradesman, who, on the score of interest, was entirely at
Mr. H...'s devotion, and who let him the first floor, very
genteelly furnished, for two guineas a week, of which I was
instated mistress, with a maid to attend me.
He stayed with me that evening, and we had a supper from a
neighbouring tavern, after which, and a gay glass or two, the
maid put me to bed. Mr. H.... soon followed, and
notwithstanding the fatigues of the preceding night, I found no
quarter nor remission from him: he piquet himself, as he told
me, on doing the honours of my new apartment.
The morning being pretty well advanced, we got to breakfast;
and the ice now broke, my heart, no longer engrossed by love,
began to take ease, and to please itself with such trifles Mr.
H....'s liberal liking led him to make his court to the usual vanity
of our sex. Silks, laces: ear rings, pearl necklace, gold watch, in
sort, all the trinkets and articles of dress were lavishly heaped
upon me; the sence of which, if it did not create returns of love,
forced a kind of grateful fondness, something like love: a
distinction which it would be spoiling the pleasure of nine tenths
of the keepers in the town to make, and is, I suppose, the very
good reason why so few of them ever do make it.
I was now established the kept mistress in form, well lodged,
with a very sufficient allowance, and lighted up with all the
lustre of dress.
Mr. H.... continued kind and tender to me; yet, with all this, I
was far from happy: for, besides my regrets for my dear youth,
which, though often suspended or diverted, still returned upon
me in certain melancholic moments with redoubled violence, I
wanted more society, more dissipation.
As to Mr. H.... he was so much my superior in every sense,
that I felt it too much to the disadvantage of the gratitude I
owed him. Thus he gained my esteem, though he could not raise
my taste; I was qualified for no sort of conversation with him,
except one sort, and that is a satisfaction which leaves tiresome
intervals, if not filled up by love, or other amusements.
Mr. H...., so experienced, so learned in the ways of women,
numbers of whom had passed through his hands, doubtless,
soon perceived this uneasiness, and, without approving, or liking
me the better for it, had the complaisance to indulge me.
He made suppers at my lodging, where he brought several
companions of his pleasures, with their mistresses; and by this
means I got into a circle of acquaintance, that soon stripped me
of all the remains of bashfulness and modesty which might be
yet left of my country education, and were, to a just taste,
perhaps, the greatest of my charms.
We visited one another in form, and mimicked, as near as we
could, all the miseries, the follies, and impertinencies of the
women in quality, in the round of which they trifle away their
time, without it ever entering their little heads, that on earth
there cannot subsist any thing more silly, more flat, more insipid
and worthless, than, generally considered, their system of life is:
they ought to treat the men as their tyrants, indeed! were they to
condemn them to it.
But though, amongst the kept mistresses (and I was now
acquainted with a good many, besides some useful matrons, who
live by their connexions with them), I hardly knew one that did
not perfectly detest their keepers, and, of course, made little or
no scruple of any infidelity they could safely accomplish, I had
still no notion of wronging mine: for, besides that no mark of
jealousy on his side started me the hint, or gave me the
provocation to play him a trick of that sort, and that his
constant generosity, politeness, and tender attention to please
me, forced a regard to him, that, without affecting my heart,
insured him my fidelity, no object had yet presented that could
overcome the habitual liking I had contracted for him and I was
on the eve of obtaining, from the movements of his own
voluntary generosity, a modest provision for life, when an
accident happened which broke all the measures he had resolved
upon in my favour.
I had now lived near seven months with Mr. H.... when one
day returning to my lodgings, from a visit in the neighbourhood,
where I used to stay longer, I found the street door open, and
the maid of the house standing at it, talking with some of her
acquaintance, so that I came in without knocking and, as I
passed by, she told me Mr. H.... was above. I slept up stairs into
my own bed-chamber, with no other thought than of pulling off
my hat etc., and then to wait upon him in the dining room, into
which my bed-chamber had a door, as is common enough.
Whilst I was untying my hat strings, I fancied I heard my maid
Hannah's voice and a sort of tustle, which raised my curiosity; I
stole softly to the door, where a knot in the wood had been
slipped out, and afforded a very commanding peep-hole to the
scene then in agitation, the actors of which had been to
earnestly employed to hear my opening my own door, from the
landing place of the stairs, into my bedchamber.
The first sight that struck me was Mr. H.... pulling and
hauling this coarse country strammel towards a couch that stood
in a corner of the dining-room; to which the girl made only a
sort of awkward holdening resistance, crying out so loud, that I,
who listened at the door, could scarce hear her: "Pray Sir,
don't.., let me alone... I am not for your turn... You cannot,
sure, demean yourself with such a poor body as I... Lord! Sir,
my mistress may come home... I must not indeed... I will cry
out..." All of which did not hinder her from insensibly suffering
herself to be brought to the foot of the couch, upon which a
push of no mighty violence served to give her a very easy fall,
and my gentleman having got up his hands to the strong hold of
her Virtue, she, no doubt, thought it was time to give up the
argument, and that all further defense would be vain: and he,
throwing her petticoats over her face, which was now as red as
scarlet, discovered a pair of stout, plump, substantial thighs,
and tolerably white; he mounted them round his haps, and
coming out with his drawn weapon, stuck it in the cloven sport,
where he seemed to find a less difficult entrance than perhaps
he had flattered himself with (for, by the way, this blouse had
left her place in the country, for a bastard), and, indeed, all his
motions shewed he was lodged pretty much at large. After he
had done, his Deare gets up, drops her petticoats down, and
smooths her apron and handkerchief. Mr. H.... looked a little
silly, and taking out some money, gave it her, with an air
indifferent enough, bidding her be a good girl, and say nothing.
Had I loved this man, it was not in nature for me to have had
patience to see the whole scene through: I should have broke in
and played the jealous princess with a vengeance. But that was
not the case: my pride alone was hurt, my heart not, and I could
easier win upon myself to see how far he would go, till I had no
uncertainty upon my conscience.
The least delicate of all affairs of this sort being now over, I
retired softly into my closet, where I began to consider what I
should do. My first scheme naturally, was to rush in and
upbraid them; this, indeed, flattered my present emotions and
vexations, as it would have given immediate vent to them; but,
on second thoughts, not being so clear as to the consequence to
be apprehended from such a step, I began my discovery still a
safer season, when dissembly my discovery till a safer season,
when Mr. H.... should have perfected the settlement he had
made overtures to me of, and which I was not to think such a
violent explanation, as I was indeed not equal to the
management of, could possibly forward, and might destroy. On
the other hand, the provocation seemed too gross, too flagrant
not to give me some thoughts of revenge; the very start of which
idea restored me to perfect composure; and delighted as I was
with the confused plan of it in my head, I was easily mistress
enough of myself to support the part of ignorance I had
prescribed to myself; and as all this circle of reflections was
instantly over, I stole a tip-toe to the passage door, and opening
it with a noise, passed for having that moment come home; and
after a short pause, as if to pull off my things, I opened the door
into the dining room, where I fund the dowdy blowing the fire,
and my faithful shepherd walking about the room, and wistling,
as cool and unconcerned as if nothing had happened. I think,
however, he had not much to brag of having out-dissembled me:
for I kept up, nobly, the character of our sex for art, and went
up to him with the same open air of frankness as I had ever
received him. He stayed but a little while, made some excuse for
not being able to stay the evening with me, and went out.
As for the wench, she was now spoiled, at least for my
servant; and scarce eight and forty hours were gone round,
before her insolence, on what had passed betwen Mr. H.... and
her, gave me so fair an occasion to turn her away, at a minute's
warning, that, not to have done it would have been the wonder;
so that he could neither disapprove it nor find in it the least
reason to suspect my original motive. What became of her
afterwards, I know not; but generous as Mr. H.... was, he
undoubtedly made her amends: though, I dare answer, that he
kept up no further commerce with her of that sort; as his
stooping to such a coarse morsel, was only a sudden sally of
lust, on seeing a wholesome looking, buxom country wench, and
no more strange than hunger, or even a whimsical appetite's
making a fling meal of neck-beef, for change of diet.
 Had I considered this escapade of Mr. H.... in no more than
that light and contented myself with turning away the wench, I
had thought and acted right; but, flushed as I was with
imaginary wrongs, I should have held Mr. H... to have been
cheaply off, if I had not pushed my revenge farther, and repaid
him, as exactly as could for the soul of me, in the same coin.
Nor was this worthy act of justice long delayed: I had it too
much at heart. Mr. H... had, about a fortnight before, taken into
his service a tenant's son, just come out the country, a very
handsome young lad, scarce turned of nineteen, fresh as a rose,
well sharped and clear limbed: in short, a very good excuse for
any woman's liking, even though revenge had been out of the
question; any woman, I say, who was disprejudiced, and that
wit and spirit enough to prefer a point of pleasure to a point of
pride.
Mr. H... had clapped a livery upon him; and his chief employ
was, after being shewn my lodgings, to bring and carry letters or
messages between his master and me; and as the situation of all
kept ladies is not the fittest to inspire respect, even to the
meanest of mankind, and, perhaps, less of it from the most
ignorant, I could not help observing that this lad, who was, I
suppose, acquainted with my relation to his master by his fellow
servants, used to eye me in that bashful confused way, more
expressive, more moving and readier caught at by our sex, than
any other declarations whatever: my figure had, it seems, struck
him, and modest and innocent as he was, he did not himself
know that the pleasure he took in looking at me was love, or
desire; but his eyes, naturally wanton, and now inflamed with
passion, spoke a great deal more than he durst have imagined
they did. Hitherto, indeed, I had only taken notice of the
comeliness of the youth, but without the least design: my pride
alone would have guarded me from a thought that way, had not
Mr. H....'s condescension with my maid, where there was not
half the temptation, in point of person, set me a dangerous
example; but now I began to look on this stripling as every way
a delicious instrument of my designed retaliation upon Mr. H....
of an obligation for which I should have made a conscience to
die in his debt.
In order then to pave the way for the accomplishment of my
scheme, for two or three times that the young fellow came to me
with messages, I managed so, or without affectation to have him
admitted to my bed side, or brought to me at my toilet, where I
was dressing; and by carelessly shewing or letting him, as if
without meaning or design, sometimes my bosom rather more
bare than it should be; sometimes my hair, of which I had a very
fine head, in the natural flow of it while combing; sometimes a
neat leg, that had unfortunately slipt its garter, which I made no
scruple of tying before him, easily gave him the impressions
favourable to my purpose, which I could perceive to sparkle in
his eyes, and glow in his cheeks: then certain slight squeezes by
the hand, as I took letters from him, did his business
completely.
When I saw him thus moved, and fired for my purpose, I
inflamed him yet more, by asking him several leading questions,
such as: "Had he a mistress?... was she prettier than me?...
could he love such a one as I was?..." and the like; to all which
the blushing simpleton answered to my wish, in a strain of
perfect nature, perfect undebauched innocence, but with all the
awkwardness and simplicity of country breeding.
When I thought I had sufficiently ripened him for the laudable
point I had in view, one day that I expected him at a particular
hour, I took care to have the coast clear for the reception I
designed him; and, as I laid it, he came to the dining room door,
tapped at it, and, in my bidding him come in; he did so, and
shut the door after him. I desired him, then, to bolt it on the
inside, pretending it would not otherwise keep shut.
I was then lying at length upon that very couch, the scene of
Mr. H....'s polite joys, in an undress, which was with all the art
of negligence flowing loose, and in a most tempting disorder: no
stays, no hoop..., no incumbrance whatever. On the other hand,
he stood at a little distance, that gave me a full view of a fine
featured, shapely, healthy country lad, breathing the sweets of
fresh blooming youth; his hair, which was of a perfect shining
black, played to his face in natural side curls, and was set out
with a smart tuck-up behind; new buckskin breechs, that,
clipping close, shewed the shape of a plump, well made thigh;
white stockings, garter-laced livery, shoulder knot, altogether
composed a figure of pure flesh and blood, and appeared under
no disgrace from the lowness of a dress, to which a certain
spruce neatness seems peculiarly fitted.
I bid him come towards me, and give me his letter, at the
same time throwing down, carelessly, a book I had in my hands.
He coloured, and came within reach of delivering me the letter,
which he held out, awkwardly enough, for me to take, with his
eyes rivetted on my bosom, which was, through the designed
disorder of my handkerchief, sufficiently bare, and rather than
hid.
I, smiling in his face, took the letter, and immediately catching
hold of his shirt sleeve, drew him towards me, blushing, and
almost trembling; for surely his extreme bashfulness, and utter
inexperience called for, at least, all the advances to encourage
him: his body was now conveniently inclined toward me, and
just softly chucking his beardless chin, I asked him: "If he was
afraid of a lady?..." and with that took, and carrying his hands
to my breasts, I press it tenderly to them. They were now finely
furnished, and raised in flesh, so that, panting with desire, they
rose and fell, in quick heaves, under his touch: at this, the boy's
eyes began to lighten with all the fires of inflamed nature, and
his cheeks flushed with a deep scarlet: tongue-tied with joy,
rapture, and bashfulness, he could not speak, but then his looks,
his emotion, sufficiently satisfied me that my train had taken,
and that I had no disappointment to fear.
My lips, which I threw in his way, so that he could not escape
kissing them, fixed, fired, and emboldened him: and now,
glancing my eyes towards that part of his dress which covered
the essential object of enjoyment, I plainly discovered the swell
and commotion there; and as I was now too far advanced to stop
in so fair a way, and was indeed no longer able to contain
myself, or wait the slower progress of his maiden bash-fulness
(for such it seemed, and really was), I stole my hands upon his
thighs, down one of which I could both see and feel a stiff hard
body, confined by his breeches, that my fingers could discover
no end to. Curious then, and eager to unfold so alarming a
mystery, playing, as it were, with his buttons, which were
bursting ripe from the active force within, those of his waistband
and fore-flap flew open at a touch, when out IT started; and
now, disengaged from the shirt, I saw, with wonder and
surprise, what? not the play thing of a boy, not the weapon of a
man, but a Maypole, of so enormous a standard, that had
proportions been observed, it must have belonged to a young
giant. Yet I could not, without pleasure, behold, and even
venture to feel, such a length, such a breadth of animated ivory!
perfectly well turned and fashioned, the proud stiffness of which
distented its skin, whose smooth polish and velvet softness
might vie with that of the most delicate of our sex, and whose
exquisite whiteness was not a little set off by a sprout of black
curling hair round the root: through the jetty springs of which
the fair skin shewed as in a fine evening you may have remarked
the clear light through the branchwork of distant trees over-
topping the summit of a hill: then the broad of blueish-casted
incarnate of the head, and blue serpentines of its veins,
altogether composed the most striking assemblage of figure and
colours in nature. In short, it stood an object of terror and
delight.
But what was yet more surprising, the owner of this natural
curiosity, through the want of occasions in the strictness of his
home breeding, and the little time he had been in town not
having afforded him one; was hitherto an absolute stranger, in
practice at least, to the use of all that manhood he was so nobly
stocked with; and it now fell to my lot to stand his first trial of
it, if I could resolve to run the risks of its disproportion to that
tender part of me, which such an oversized machine was very fit
to lay in ruins.
But it was now of the latest to deliberate, for, by this time, the
young fellow, over heated with the present objects, and too high
metled to be longer curbed in by that modesty and awe which
had hitherto restrained him, ventured, under the stronger
impulse, and instructive promptership of nature alone, to slip
his hands, trembling with eager impetuous desires, under my
petticoats; and seeing, I suppose, nothing extremely severe in my
looks, to stop or dash him, he feels out, and seizes, gently, the
center spot of his ardours. Oh then! the fiery touch of his lingers
determines me, and my fears melting away before the glowing
intolerable heat, my thighs disclose of themselves, and yield all
liberty to his hand: and now, a favourable movement giving my
petticoats a toss, the avenue lay too fair, too open to be missed.
He is now upon me: I had placed myself with a jerk under him,
as commodious and open as possible to his attempts, which
were untoward enough, for his machine, meeting with no inlet,
bore and battered stiffly against me in random pushes, now
above, now below, now beside his point; till, burning with
impatience from its irritating touches, I guided gently, with my
hand, this furious fescue to where my young novice was now to
be taught his first lesson of pleasure. Thus he nicked, at length,
the warm and insufficient orifice; but he was made to find no
breach impracticable, and mine, though so often entered, was
still far from wide enough to take him easily in.
By my direction, however, the head of his unwieldy machine
was so critically pointed, that, feeling him fore-right against the
tender opening, a favourable motion from me met his timely
thrust, by which the lips of it, strenuously dilated, gave way to
his thus assisted impetuosity, so that we might both feel that he
had gained a lodgment. Pursuing then his point, he soon, by
violent, and, to me, most painful piercing thrusts, wedges
himself at length so far in, as to be now tolerably secure of his
entrance: here he stuck, and I now felt such a mixture of
pleasure and pain, as there is no giving a definition of. I dreaded
alike his splitting me farther up, or his withdrawing; I could not
bear either to keep or part with him. The sense of pain,
however, prevailing, from his prodigious size and stiffness,
acting upon me in those continued rapid thrusts, with which he
furiously pursued his penetration, made me cry out gently: "Oh,
my dear, you hurt me!" This was enough to check the tender
respectful boy even in his mid-career; and he immediately drew
out the sweet cause of my complaint, whilst his eyes eloquently
expressed, at once, his grief for hurting me, and his reluctance at
dislodging from quarters, of which the warmth and closeness
had given him a gust of pleasure, that he was now desire mad to
satisfy, and yet too much a novice not to be afraid of my
withholding his relief, on account of the pain he had put me to.
But I was, myself, far from being pleased with his having too
much regarded my tender exclaims; for now, more fired with the
object before me, as it still stood with the fiercest erection,
unbonneted, and displayed its broad vermilion head, I first gave
the youth a re-encouraging kiss, which he repaid me with a
fervour that seemed at once to thank me, and bribe my further
compliance; and soon replaced myself in a posture to receive, at
all risk, the renewed invasion, which he did not delay an
instant: for, being presently remounted, I once more felt the
smooth hard gristle forcing an entrance, which he achieved
rather easier than before. Pained, however, as I was, with his
efforts of gaining a complete admission, which he was so
regardful as to manage by gentle degrees, I took care not to
complain. In the mean time, the soft strait passage gradually
loosens, yields, and, stretched to its utmost bearing, by the
stick, thick, indriven engine, sensible, at once, to the ravishing
pleasure of the feel and the pain of the distension, let him in
about half way, when all the most nervous activity he now
exerted, to further his penetration, gained him not an inch of his
purpose: for, whilst he hesitated there, the crisis of pleasure
overtook him, and the close compressure of the warm
surrounding flow drew from him the ecstatic gush, even before
mine was ready to meet it, kept up by the pain I had endured in
the course of the engagement, from the insufferable size of his
weapon, though it was not as yet in above half its length.
I expected then, but without wishing it, that he would draw,
but was pleasingly disappointed: for he was not to be let off so.
The well breathed youth, hot-mettled, and flush with genial
juices, was now fairly in for making me know my driver. As
soon, then, as he had made a short pause, waking, as it were,
out of the trance of pleasure (in which every sense seemed lost
for a while, whilst, with his eyes shut, and short quick
breathings, he had yielded down his maiden tribute), he still
kept his post, yet unsated with enjoyment, and solacing in these
so new delights; till his stiffness, which had scarce perceptibly
remitted, being thoroughly recovered to him, who had not once
unsheathed, he proceeded afresh to cleave and open to himself
an entire entry into me, which was not a little made easy to him
by the balsamic injection, with: which he had just plentifully
moistened the whole internals of the passage. Redoubling, then,
the active energy of his thrusts, favoured by the fervid
appetency of my motions, the soft oiled wards can no longer
stand so effectual a picklock, but yield, and open him an
entrance. And now, with conspiring nature, and my industry,
strong to aid him, he pierces, penetrates, and at length, winning
his way inch by inch, gets entirely in, and finally, a home made
thrust sheaths it up to the guard; on the information of which,
from the close jointure of our bodies (insomuch that the hair on
both sides perfectly interweaved and incircled together), the eyes
of the transported youth sparkled with more joyous fires, and all
his looks and motions acknowledged excess of pleasure, which I
now began to share, for I felt him in my very vitals! I was quite
sick with delight! stirred beyond bearing with its furious
agitations within me, and gorged and crammed, even to a
surfeit. Thus I lay gasping, panting under him, till his broken
breathings, faultering accents, eyes twinkling with humid fires,
lunges more furious, and an increased stiffness, gave me to hail
the approaches of the second period: it came... and the sweet
youth, overpowered with the ecstasy, died away in my arms,
melting a flood that shot in genial warmth into the innermost
recesses of my body; every conduit of which, dedicated to that
pleasure, was on flow to mix with it. Thus we continued for
some instants, lost, breathless, senseless of every thing, and in
every part but those favourite ones of nature, in which all that
we enjoyed of life and sensation was now totally concentered.
 When our mutual trance was a little over, and the young
fellow had withdrawn that delicious stretcher, with which he
had most plentifully drowned all thoughts of revenge, in the
sense of actual pleasure, the widened wounded passage refunded
a stream of pearly liquids, which flowed down my thighs, mixed
with streaks of blood, the marks of the ravage of that monstrous
machine of his, which had now triumphed over a kind of second
maidenhead. I stole, however, my handkerchief to those parts,
and wiped them as dry as I could, whilst he was re-adjusting
and buttoning up.
I made him sit down by me, and as he had gathered courage
from such extreme intimacy, he gave me an aftercourse of
pleasure, in a natural burst of tender gratitude and joy, at the
new scenes of bliss I had opened to him: scenes positively new,
as he had never before had the least acquaintance with that
mysterious mark, the cloven stamp of female distinction, though
nobody better qualified than he to penetrate into its deepest
recesses, or do it nobler justice. But when, by certain motions,
certain unquietness of his hands, that wandered not without
design, I found he languished for satisfying a curiosity, natural
enough, to view and handle those parts which attract and
concenter the warmest force of imagination, charmed, as I was,
to have any occasion of obliging and humouring his young
desires, I suffered him to proceed as he pleased, without check
or control, to the satisfaction of them.
Easily, then, reading in my eyes the full permission of myself
to all his wishes, he scarce pleased himself more than me; when,
having insinuated his hand under my petticoat and shift, he
presently removed those bars to the sight, by slily lifting them
upwards, under favour of a thousand kisses, which he thought,
perhaps, necessary to divert my attention from what he was
about. All my drapery being now rolled up to my waist, I threw
myself into such a posture upon the couch, as gave up to him, in
full view, the whole region of delight, and all the luxurious
landscape around it. The transported youth devoured every thing
with his eyes, and tried, with his fingers, to lay more open to his
sight the secrets of that dark and delicious deep: he opens the
folding lips, the softness of which, yielding entry to any thing of
a hard body, close round it, and oppose the sight; and feeling
further, meets with, and wonder at, a soft fleshy excrescence,
which, limber and relaxed after the late enjoyment, now grew,
under the touch and examination of his fiery fingers, more and
more stiff and considerable, till the titillating ardours of that so
sensible part made me sigh, as if he had hurt me; on which he
withdrew his curious probing fingers, asking me pardon, as it
were, in a kiss that rather increased the flame there.
Novelty ever makes the strongest impressions, and in
pleasures, especially; no wonder then, that he was swallowed up
in raptures of admiration of things so interesting by their nature,
and now seen and handled for the first time. On my part, I was
richly overpaid for the pleasure I gave him, in that of examining
the power of those objects thus abandoned to him, naked and
free to his loosest wish, over the artless, natural stripling: his
eyes streaming fire, his cheeks glowing with a florid red, his
fervid frequent sighs, whilst his hands convulsively squeezed,
opened, pressed together again the lips and sides of that deep
flesh wound, or gently twitched the over-growing moss; and all
proclaimed the excess, the riot of joys, in having his wantonness
thus humoured. But he did not long abuse my patience, for the
objects before him had now put him by all his, and, coming out
with that formidable machine of his, he lets the fury loose, and
pointing it directly to the pouting-lip mouth, that bid him sweet
defiance in dumb shew, squeezes in his head, and, driving with
refreshed rage, breaks in, and plugs up the whole passage of that
soft pleasure-conduit pipe, where he makes all shake again, and
put, once more, all within me into such an uproar, as nothing
could still, but a fresh inundation from the very engine of those
flames, as well as from all the springs with which nature floats
that reservoir of joy, when risen to its floodmark.
I was now so bruised, so battered, so spent with this
overmatch, that I could hardly stir, or raise myself, but lay
palpitating, till the ferment of my senses subsiding by degrees,
and the hour striking at which I was obliged to dispatch my
young man, I tenderly advised him of the necessity there was for
parting; at which I felt so much displeasure as he could do, who
seemed eagerly disposed to keep the field, and to enter on a
fresh action. But the danger was too great, and after some hearty
kisses of leave, and recommendations of secrecy and discretion,
I forced myself to send him away, not without assurances of
seeing him again, to the same purpose, as soon as possible, and
thrust a guinea into his hands: not more, less, being too flush of
money, a suspicion or discovery might arise from thence; having
everything to fear from the dangerous indiscretion of that age in
which young fellows would be too irresistible, too charming, if
we had not that terrible fault to guard against.
Giddy and intoxicated as I was with such satiating draughts of
pleasure, I still lay on the couch, supinely stretched out, in a
delicious languor diffused over all my limbs, hugging myself for
being thus revenged to my heart's content, and that in a manner
so precisely alike, and on the identical spot in which I had
received the supposed injury. No reflections on the consequences
ever once perplexed me, nor did I make myself one single
reproach for having, by this step, completely entered myself into
a profession more decried than disused. I should have held it
ingratitude to the pleasure I had received, to have repented of it;
and since I was now over the bar, I thought, by plunging head
and ears into the stream I was hurried away by, to drown all
sense of shame or reflection.
Whilst I was thus making these laudable dispositions, and
whispering to myself a kind of tacit vow of incontinency, enters
Mr. H... The consciousness of what I had been doing deepened
yet the glowing of my cheeks, flushed with the warmth of the
late action, which, joined to the piquant air of my dishabile,
drew from Mr. H.... a compliment on my looks, which he was
proceeding to bask the sincerity of with proofs, and that with so
brisk an action, as made me tremble for fear of a discovery from
the condition those parts were left in from their late severe
handling: the orifice dilated and inflamed, the lips swollen with
their uncommon distension, the ringlets pressed down, crushed
and uncurled with the over flowing moisture that had wet
everything round it; in short, the different feel and state of
things would hardly have passed upon one of Mr. H.....'s nicety
and experience unaccounted for but by the real cause. But here
the woman saved me: I pretended a violent disorder of my head,
and a feverish heat, that indisposed me too much to receive his
embraces. He gave in to this, and good naturedly desisted. Soon
after, an old lady coming in made a third, very apropos for the
confusion I was in, and Mr. H...., after bidding me take care of
myself, and recommending me to my repose, left me much at
ease and relieved by his absence.
In the close of the evening, I took care to have prepared for
me a warm bath of aromatik and sweet herbs; in which having
fully laved and solaced myself, I came out voluptuously
refreshed in body and spirit.
The next morning waking pretty early, after a night's perfect
rest and composure, it was not without some dread and
uneasiness that I thought of what innovation that tender soft
system of mine might have sustained, from the shock of a
machine so sized for its destruction.
Struck with this apprehension, I scarce dared to carry my
hand thither, to inform myself of the state and posture of things.
But I was soon agreeably cured of my fears.
The silky hair that covered round the borders, now smoothed
and re-pruned, had resumed its wonted curl and trimness; the
fleshy pouting lips that had stood the brunt of the engagement,
were no longer swollen or moisture-drenched; and neither they,
nor the passage into which they opened, that had suffered so
great a dilation, betrayed any the least alteration, outwardly or
inwardly, to the most curious research, notwithstanding the
laxity that naturally follows the warm bath.
This continuation of that grateful stricture which is in us, to
the men, the very jet of their pleasure, I owed, it seems, to a
happy habit of body, juicy, plump and furnished, towards the
texture of those parts, with a fullness of soft springy flesh, that
yielding sufficiently, as it does, to almost any distension soon
recovers itself so as to re-tighten that strict compression of its
mantlings and folds, which form the sides of the passage,
wherewith it so tenderly embraces and closely clips any foreign
body introduced into it, such as my exploring finger then was.
Finding then every thing in due tone and order, I remember
my fears, only to make a jest of them to myself. And now,
palpably mistress of any size of man, and triumphing in my
double achievement of pleasure and revenge, I abandoned myself
entirely to the ideas of all the delight I had swam in. I lay
stretching out, glowingly alive all over, and tossing with burning
impatience for the renewal of joys that had sinned but in a sweet
excess; nor did I lose my longing, for about ten in the morning,
according to expectation, Will, my new humble sweetheart, came
with a message from his master, Mr. H...., to know how I did. I
had taken care to send my maid on an errand into the city, that
I was sure would take up time enough; and, from the people of
the house, I had nothing to fear, as they were plain good sort of
folks, and wise enough to mind no more other people's business
than they could well help.
All dispositions then made, not forgetting that of lying in bed
to receive him, when he was entered the door of my bed
chamber, a latch, that I governed by a wire, descended and
secured it.
I could not but observe that my young minion was as much
spruced out as could be expected from one in his condition: a
desire of pleasing that could not be indifferent to me, since it
proved that I pleased him; which, I assure you, was now a point
I was not above having in view.
His hair trimly dressed, clean linen, and, above all, a hale,
ruddy, wholesome country look, made him out as pretty a piece
of woman's meat as you could see, and I should have thought
any one much out of taste, that could not have made a hearty
meal of such a morsel as nature seemed to have designed for the
highest diet of pleasure.
 And why should I here suppress the delight I received from
this amiable creature, in remarking each artless look, each
motion of pure indissembled nature, betrayed by his wanton
eyes; or shewing, transparently, the glow and suffusion of blood
through his fresh, clear skin, whilst even his stury rustic
pressure wanted not their peculiar charm? Oh! but, say you, this
was a young fellow of too low a rank of life to deserve so great a
display. May be so: but was my condition, strictly considered,
one jot more exalted? or, had I really been much above him, did
not his capacity of giving such exquisite pleasure sufficiently
raise and enoble him, to me, at least? Let who would, for me
cherish, respect, and reward the painter's, the statuary's, the
musician's art, in proportion to the delight taken in them: but at
my age, and with my taste for pleasure, a taste strongly
constitutional to me, the talent of pleasing, with which nature
has endowed a handsome person, formed to me the greatest of
all merits; compared to which, the vulgar prejudices in favour of
titles, dignities, honours, and the like, held a very low rank
indeed. Nor perhaps would the beauties of the body be so much
affected to be held cheap, were they, in their nature, to be
bought and delivered. But for me, whose natural philosophy all
resided in the favourite center of sense, and who was ruled by
its powerful instinct in taking pleasure by its right handle, I
could scarce have made a choice more to my purpose.
Mr. H....'s loftier qualifications of birth, fortune and sense,
laid me under a sort of subjection and constraint, that were far
from making harmony in the concert of love; nor had he,
perhaps, thought me worth softening that superiority to; but,
with this lad, I was more on the level which love delights in.
We may say what we please, but those we can be the easiest
and freest with, are ever those we like, not to say love the best.
With this stripling, all whose art of love was the action of it, I
could, without check of awe or restraint, give a loose to jay, and
execute every scheme of dalliance my fond fancy might put me
on, in which he was, in every sense, a most exquisite
companion. And now my great pleasure lay in humouring all the
petulances, all the wanton frolic of a raw novice just fledged,
and keen on the burning scent of his game, but unbroken to the
sport: and, to carry on the figure, who could better read the
wood than he, or stand fairer for the heart of the hunt?
He advanced then to my bed side, and whilst he faultered out
his message, I could observe his colour rise, and his eyes lighten
with joy, in seeing me in a situation as favourable to his loosest
wishes, as if he had bespoke the play.
I smiled, and put out my hand towards him, which he kneeled
down to (a politeness taught him by love alone, that great
master of it) and greedily kissed. After exchanging a few
confused questions and answers, I asked him if he would come
to bed to me, for the little time I could venture to detain him.
This was just asking a person, dying with hunger, to feast upon
the dish on earth the most to his palate. Accordingly, without
further reflection, his clothes were off in an instant; when,
blushing still more at this new liberty, he got under the bed
clothes I held up to receive him, and was now in bed with a
woman for the first time in his life.
Here began the usual tender preliminaries, as delicious,
perhaps, as the crowning act of enjoyment itself; which they
often beget an impatience of, that makes pleasure destructive of
itself, by hurrying on the final period, and closing that scene of
bliss, in which the actors are generally too well pleased with
their parts, not to wish them an eternity of duration.
When we had sufficiently graduated our advances towards the
main point, by toying, kissing, clipping, feeling my breasts, now
round and plump, feeling that part of me I might call a furnace
mouth, from the prodigious intense heat his fiery touches had
rekindled there, my young sportsman, emboldened by the very
freedom he could wish, wontonly takes my hand, and carries it
to that enormous machine of his, that stood with a stiffness! a
hardness! an upward bend of erection! and which, together with
it bottom dependence, the inestimable bulse of ladies jewels,
formed a grand showout of goods indeed! Then its dimensions,
mocking either grasp or span, almost renewed my terrors.
 I could not conceive how, or by what means I could take, or
put such a bulk out of sight. I stroked it gently, on which the
mutinous rogue seemed to swell, and gather a new degree of
fierceness and insolence; so that finding it grew not to be trifled
with any longer, I prepared for rubbers in good earnest.
Slipping then a pillow under me, that I might give him the
fairest play, I guided officiously with my hand this furious
battering ram, whose ruby head, presenting nearest the
resemblance of a heart, I applied to its proper mark, which lay
as finely elevated as we could wish; my hips being borne up, and
my thighs at their utmost extension, the gleamy warmth that
shot from it, made him feel that he was at the mouth of the
indraught, and driving fore right, the powerfully divided lips of
that pleasure-thirsty channel received him. He hesitated a little;
then, settled well in the passage, he makes his way up the
straights of it, with a difficulty nothing more than pleasing,
widening as he went so as to distend and smooth each soft
furrow: our pleasure increasing deliciously, in proportion to our
points of mutual touch increased in that so vital part of me
which I had now taken him, all indriven, and completely
sheathed; and which, crammed as it was, stretched splitting
ripe, gave it so gratefully straight an accommodation! so strict a
fold! a suction so fierce! that gave and took unutterable delight.
We had now reached the closest point of union; but when he
beckened to come on the fiercer, as if I had ben actuated by a
fear of losing him, in the height of my fury, I twist my legs
round his naked loins, the flesh of which, so firm, so springy to
the touch, quivered again under the pressure; and now I had
him every way encircled and begirt; and having drawn him home
to me, I kept him fast there, as if I had sought to unite bodies
with him at that point. This bred a pause of action, a pleasure
stop, whilst that delicate glutton, my nether mouth, as full as it
could hold, kept palating, with exquisite relish, the morsel that
so deliciously ingorged it. But nature could not long endure a
pleasure that it so highly provoked without satisfying it:
pursuing then its darling end, the battery recommenced with
redoubled exertion; nor lay I inactive on my side, but
encountering him with all the impetuosity of motion I was
mistress of, the downy cloth of our meeting mount was now of
real use to break the violence of the tilt; and soon, indeed! the
highwrought agitation, the sweet urgency of this to-and-fro
friction, raised the titillation on me to its height; so that finding
myself on the point of going, and loath to leave the tender
partner of my joys behind me, I employed all the forwarding
motions and arts my experience suggested to me, to promote his
keeping me company to our journey's end. I not only then
tightened the pleasure-girth round my restless inmate, by a
secret spring of friction and compression that obeys the will in
those parts, but stole my hand softly to that store bag of nature's
prime sweets, which is so pleasingly attached to its conduit pipe,
from which we receive them; there feeling, and most gently
indeed, squeezing those tender globular reservoirs, the magic
touch took instant effect, quickened, and brought on upon the
spur the symptoms of that sweet agony, the melting moment of
dissolution, when pleasure dies by pleasure, and the mysterious
engine of it overcomes the titillation it has raised in those parts,
by plying them with the stream of a warm liquid, that in itself
the highest of all titillations, and which they thirstily express
and draw in like the hot natured leach, which, to cool itself,
tenaciously extracts all the moisture within its sphere of
execution. Chiming then to me, with exquisite consent, as I
melted away, his oily balsamic injection, mixing deliciously with
the sluices in flow from me, sheathed and blunted all the stings
of pleasure, whilst a voluptuous languor possest, and still
maintained us motionless, and fast locked in one another's arms.
Alas! that these delights should be no longer-lived; for now the
point of pleasure, unedged by enjoyment, and all the brisk
sensations flattened upon us, resigned us up to the cool cares of
insipid life. Disengaging myself then from his embrace, I made
him sensible of the reasons there were for his present leaving
me; on which, though reluctantly, he put on his clothes, with as
little expedition, however, as he could help, wantonly
interrupting himself, between whiles, with kisses, touches and
embraces I could not refuse myself to. Yet he happily returned
to his master before he was missed; but, at taking leave, I forced
him (for he had sentiments enough to refuse it) to receive money
enough to buy a silver watch, that great article of subaltern
finery, which he at length accepted of, as a remembrance he was
carefully to preserve of my affections.
And here, Madam, I ought, perhaps, to make you an apology
for this minute detail of things, that dwelt so strongly upon my
memory, after so deep an impression; but, besides that this
intrigue bred one great revolution in my life, which historical
truth requires I should not sink from you, may I not presume
that so exalted a pleasure ought not to be ungratefully forgotten,
or suppressed by me, because I found it in a character in low
life; where, by the by, it is oftener met with, purer, and more
unsophisticated, than among the false, ridiculous refinements
with which the great suffer themselves to be so grossly cheated
by their pride: the great! than whom, there exist few amongst
those they call the vulgar, who are more ignorant of, or who
cultivate less, the art of living than they do; they, I say, who for
ever mistake things the most foreign to the nature of pleasure
itself; whose capital favourite object is enjoyment of beauty,
wherever that rare incaluable gift is found, without distinction of
birth, or station.
As love never had, so now revenge had no longer any share in
my commerce in this handsome youth. The sole pleasures of
enjoyment were now the link I held to him by: for though nature
had done such great maters for him in his outward form, and
especially in that superb piece of furniture she had so liberally
enriched him with; though he was thus qualified to give the
senses their richest feast, still there was something more wanting
to create in me, and constitute the passion of love. Yet Will had
very good qualities too: gentle, tractable, and, above all,
grateful; silentious, even to a fault: he spoke, at any time, very
little, but made it up emphatically with action; and, to do him
justice, he never gave me the least reason to complain, either of
any tendency to encroach upon me for the liberties I allowed
him, or of his indiscretion in blabbing them. There is, then, a
fatality in love, or have loved him I must; for he was really a
treasure, a bit for the Bonne Bouche of a duchess; and, to say
the truth, my liking for him was so extreme, that it was
distinguishing very nicely to deny that I loved him.
My happiness, however, with him did not last long, but found
an end from my own imprudent neglect. After having taken even
superfluous precautions against a discovery, our success in
repeated meetings emboldened me to omit the barely necessary
ones. About a month after our first intercourse, one fatal
morning (the season Mr. H.... rarely or never visited me in) I
was in my closet, where my toilet stood, in nothing but my shift,
a bed gown and under petticoat. Will was with me, and both
ever too well disposed to baulk an opportunity. For my part, a
whim, a wanton toy had just taken me, and I had challenged my
man to execute it on the spot, who hesitated not to comply with
my humour: I was set in the arm chair, my shift and petticoat
up, my thighs wide spread and mounted over the arms of the
chair, presenting the fairest mark to Will's drawn weapon, which
he stood in act to plunge into me, when, having neglected to
secure the chamber door, and that of the closet standing a-jar,
Mr. H.... stole in upon us, before either of us was aware, and
saw us precisely in these convicting attitudes.
I gave a great scream, and dropped my petticoat: the thunder-
struck lad stood trembling and pale, waiting his sentence of
death. Mr. H.... looked sometimes at one, sometimes at the
other, with a mixture of indignation and scorn; and, without
saying a word, spun upon his heel and went out.
As confused as I was, I heard him very distinctly turn the key,
and lock the chamber door upon us, so that there was no escape
but through the dining room, where he himself was walking
about with distempered strides, stamping in a great chafe, and
doubtless debating what he would do with us.
In the mean time, poor William was frightened out of his
senses, and, as much need as I had of spirits myself, I was
obliged to employ them all to keep his a little up. The misfortune
I had now brought upon him, endeared him the more to me, and
I could have joyfully suffered any punishment he had not shared
in. I watered, plentifully, with my tears, the face of the
frightened youth, who sat, not having strength to stand, as cold
and as lifeless as a statue.
Presently Mr. H.... comes in to us again, and made us go
before him into the dining room, trembling and dreading the
issue, Mr. H.....sat down on a chair whilst we stood like
criminals under examination; and, beginning with me, asked me,
with an even firm tone of voice, neither soft nor severe, but
cruelly indifferent, what I could say for myself, for having
abused him in so unworthy a manner, with his own servant too,
and how he had deserved this of me?
Without adding to the guilt of my infidelity, that of an
audacious defence of it, in the old style of a common kept miss,
my answer was modest, and often interrupted by my tears, in
substance as follows: "That I never had a single thought of
wronging him" (which was true), "till I had seen him taking the
last liberties with my servant wench" (here he coloured
prodigiously), "and that my resentment at that, which I was
over-awed from giving vent to by complaints, or explanations
with him, had driven me to a course that I did not pretend to
justify; but that as to the young man, he was entirely faultless;
for that, in the view of making him the instrument of my
revenge, I had down right seduced him to what he had done;
and therefore hoped, whatever he determined about me, he
would distinguish between the guilty and the innocent; and that;
for the rest, I was entirely at his mercy."
Mr. H.... on hearing what I said, hung his head a little; but
instantly recovering himself, he said to me, as near as I can
retain, to the following purpose:
"Madam, I owe shame to myself, and confess you have fairly
turned the tables upon me. It is not with one of your cast of
breeding and sentiments, that I allow you so much reason on
your side, as great difference of the provocations: be it sufficient
that I should enter into a discussion of the very to have changed
my resolution, in consideration of what you reproach me with;
and I own, too, that your clearing that rascal there, is fair and
honest in you. Renew with you I cannot: the affront is too gross.
I give you a week's warning to get out of these lodgings;
whatever I have given you, remains to you; and as I never intend
to see you more, the landlord will pay you fifty pieces on my
account, with which, and every debt paid, I hope you will own I
do not leave you in a worse condition than what I took you up
in, or that you deserve of me. Blame yourself only that it is no
better."
Then, without giving me time to reply, he addressed himself to
the young fellow:
"For you, spark, I shall, for your father's sake, take care of
you: the town is no place for such an easy fool as thou art; and
to-morrow you shall set out, under the charge of one of my men,
well recommended, in my name, to your father, not to let you
return and be spoil'd here."
At these words he went out, after my vainly attempting to
stop him, by throwing myself at his feet. He shook me off,
though he seemed greatly moved too, and took Will away with
him, who, I dare swear, thought himself very cheaply off.
I was now once more a-drift, and left upon my own hands, by
a gentleman whom I certainly did not deserve. And all the
letters, arts, friends, entreaties that I employed within the week
of grace in my lodging, could never win on him so much as to
see me again. He had irrevocably pronounced my doom, and
submission to it was my only part. Soon after he married a lady
of birth and fortune, to whom, I have heard he proved an
irreproachable husband.
As for poor Will, he was immediately sent down to the country
to his father, who was an easy farmer, where he was not four
months before an inn-keepers' buxom young widow, with a very
good stock, both in money and trade, fancied, and perhaps pre-
acquainted with his secret excellencies, married him: and I am
sure there was, at least, one good foundation for their living
happily together.
 Though I should have been charmed to see him before he
went, such measures were taken, by Mr. H....'s orders, that it
was impossible; otherwise I should certainly have endeavoured
to detain him in town, and would have spared neither offers nor
expense to have procured myself the satisfaction of keeping him
with me. He had such powerful holds upon my inclinations as
were not easily to be shaken off, or replaced; as to my heart, it
was quite out of the question: glad, however, I was from my
soul, that nothing worse, and as things turned out, nothing
better could have happened to him.
As to Mr. H..., though views of conveniency made me, at first,
exert myself to regain his affection, I was giddy and thoughtless
enough to be much easier reconciled to my failure than I ought
to have been; but as I never had loved him, and his leaving me
gave me a sort of liberty that I had often longed for, I was soon
comforted; and flattering myself, that the stock of youth and
beauty I was going to trade with, could hardly fail of procuring
me a maintenance, I saw myself under the necessity of trying my
fortune with them, rather, with pleasure and gaiety, than with
the least idea of despondency.
In the mean time, several of my acquaintances among the
sisterhood, who had soon got wind of my misfortune, flocked to
insult me with their malicious consolations. Most of them had
long envied me the affluence and splendour I had been
maintained in; and though there was scarce one of them that did
not at least deserve to be in my case, and would probably,
sooner or later, come to it, it was equally easy to remark, even
in their affected pity, their secret pleasure at seeing me thus
discarded, and their secret grief that it was no worse with me.
Unaccountable malice of the human heart! and which is not
confined to the class of life they were of.
But as the time approached for me to come to some resolution
how to dispose of myself, and I was considering, round where to
shift my quarters to, Mrs. Cole, a middle aged discreet sort of
woman, who had been brought into my acquaintance by one of
the misses that visited me, upon learning my situation, came to
offer her cordial advice and service to me; and as I had always
taken to her more than to any of my female acquaintances, I
listened the easier to her proposals. And, as it happened, I could
not have put myself into worse, or into better hands in all
London: into worse, because keeping a house of conveniency,
there were no lengths in lewdness she would not advise me to
go, in compliance with her customers; no schemes, or pleasure,
or even unbounded debauchery, she did not take even a delight
in promoting: into a better, because nobody having had more
experience of the wicked part of the town than she had, was
fitter to advise and guard one against the worst dangers of our
profession; and what was rare to be met with in those of her's,
she contented herself with a moderate living profit upon her
industry and good offices, and had nothing of their greedy
rapacious turn. She was really too a gentlewoman born and
bred, but through a train of accidents reduced to this course,
which she pursued, partly through necessity, partly through
choice, as never woman delighted more in encouraging a brisk
circulation of the trade, for the sake of the trade itself, or better
understood all the mysteries and refinements of it, than she did;
so that she was consummately at the top of her profession, and
dealt only with customers of distinction: to answer the demands
of whom she kept a competent number of her daughters in
constant recruit (so she called those whom their youth and
personal charms recommended to her adoption and
management: several of whom, by her means, and through her
tuition and instructions, succeeded very well in the world).
This useful gentlewoman upon whose protection I now threw
myself, having her reasons of state, respecting Mr. H...., for not
appearing too much in the thing herself, sent a friend of her's,
on the day appointed for my removal, to conduct me to my new
lodgings at a brush-maker's in E—— street, Covent Garden, the
very next door to her own house, where she had no
conveniences to lodge me herself: lodgings that, by having been
for several successions tenanted by ladies of pleasures, the
landlord of them was familiarized to their ways; and provided
the rent was paid, every thing else was as easy and commodious
as one could desire.
The fifty guineas promised me by Mr. H...., at his parting with
me, having been duly paid me, all my clothes and moveables
chested up, which were at least of two hundred pounds value, I
had them conveyed into a coach, where I soon followed them,
after taking a civil leave of the landlord and his family, with
whom I had never lived in a degree of familiarity enough to
regret the removal; but still, the very circumstance of its being a
removal, drew tears from me. I left, too, a letter of thanks for
Mr. H...., from whom I concluded myself, as I really was,
irretrievably separated.
My maid I had discharged the day before, not only because I
had her of Mr. H...., but that I suspected her of having some
how or other been the occasion of his discovering me, in
revenge, perhaps, for my not having trusted her with him.
We soon got to my lodgings, which, though not so handsomely
furnished, nor so showy as those I left, were to the full as
convenient, and at half price, though on the first floor. My
trunks were safely landed, and stowed in my apartments, where
my neighbour, and now gouvernante, Mrs. Cole, was ready with
my landlord to receive me, to whom she took care to set me out
in the most favourable light, that of one from whom there was
the clearest reason to expect the regular payment of his rent: all
the cardinal virtues attributed to me, would not have had half
the weight of that recommendation alone.
I was now settled in lodgings of my own, abandoned to my
own conduct, and turned loose upon the town, to sink or swim,
as I could manage with the current of it; and what were the
consequences, together with the number of adventures which
befell me in the exercise of my new profession, will compose the
mater of another letter: for surely it is high time to put a period!
to this.
I am,
 MADAM,
Yours, etc., etc., etc.

THE END OF THE FIRST LETTER

Ebd
E-BooksDirectory.com
 LETTER THE SECOND
Madam:

If I have delayed the sequel of my history, it has been purely

to allow myself a little breathing time not without some hopes,
that, instead of pressing me to a continuation, you would have
acquitted me of the task of pursuing a confession, in the course
of which my self-esteem has so many wounds to sustain.
I imagined, indeed, that you would have been cloyed and tired
with uniformity of adventures and expressions, inseparable from
a subject of this sort, whose bottom, or groundwork being, in
the nature of things eternally one and the same, whatever
variety of forms and modes the situations are susceptible of,
there is no escaping a repetition of near the same images, the
same figures, the same expressions, with this further
inconvenience added to the disgust it creates, that the words
Joys, Ardours, Transports, Extasies and the rest of those pathetic
terms so congenial to, so received in the Practice of Pleasure,
flatten and lose much of their due spirit and energy by the
frequency they indispensably recur with, in a narrative of which
that Practice professedly composes the whole basis. I must
therefore trust to the candour of your judgment, for your
allowing for the disadvantage I am necessarily under in that
respect; and to your imagination and sensibility, the pleasing
taks of repairing it, by their supplements, where my descriptions
flag or fail: the one will readily place the pictures I present
before your eyes; the other give life to the colours where they
are dull, or worn with too frequent handling.
What you say besides, by way of encouragement concerning
the extreme difficulty of continuing so long in one strain, in a
mean tempered with taste, between the revoltingness of gross,
rank and vulgar expressions, and the ridicule of mincing
metaphors and affected circumlocutions, is so sensible, as well
as good-natured, that you greatly justify me to myself for my
compliance with a curiosity that is to be satisfied so extremely at
my expense.
Resuming now where I broke off in my last, I am in my way to
remark to you, that it was late in the evening before I arrived at
my lodgings, and Mrs. Cole, after helping me to range and
secure my things, spent the whole evening with me in my
apartment, where we supped together, in giving me the best
advice and instruction with regard to the new stage of my
profession I was now to enter upon; and passing thus from a
private devotee to pleasure into a public one, to become a more
general good, with all the advantages requisite to put my person
out to use, either for interest or pleasure, or both. "But then,"
she observed, "as I was a kind of new face upon the town, that
is, was an established rule and myster of trade, for me to pass
for a maid and dispose of myself as such on the first good
occasion, without prejudice, however, to such diversions as I
might have a mind to in the interim; for that nobody could be a
greater enemy than she was to the losing of time. That she
would, in the mean time, do her best to find out a proper
person, and would undertake to manage this nice point for me,
if I would accept of her aid and advice to such good purpose,
that, in the loss of a fictitious maidenhead, I should reap all the
advantages of a native one."
As too great a delicacy of sentiments did not extremely belong
to my character at that time, I confess, against myself, that I
perhaps too readily closed with a proposal which my candor and
ingenuity gave me some repugnance to: but not enough to
contradict the intention of one to whom I had now thoroughly
abandoned the direction of all my steps. For Mrs. Cole had, I do
not know how unless by one of those unaccountable invincible
sympathies that, nevertheless, from the strongest links,
especially of female friendship, won and got entire possession of
me. On her side, she pretended that a strict resemblance, she
fancied she saw in me, to an only daughter whom she had lost at
my age, was the first motive of her taking to me so affectionately
as she did. It might be so: there exist a slender motives of
attachment, that, gathering force from habit and liking, have
proved often more solid and durable than those founded on
much stronger reasons; but this I know, that though I had no
other acquaintance with her, than seeing her at my lodgings,
when I lived with Mr. H..., where she had made errands to sell
me some millinery ware, she had by degrees insinuated herself
so far into my confidence, that I threw myself blindly into her
hands, and came, at length, to regard, love, and obey her
implicitly; and, to do her justice, I never experienced at her
hands other than a sincerity of tenderness, and care for my
interest, hardly heard of in those of her profession. We parted
that night, after having settled a perfect unreserved agreement;
and the next morning Mrs. Cole came, and took me with her to
her house for the first time.
Here, at the first sight of things, I found every thing breathe
an air of decency, modesty and order.
In the outer parlour, or rather shop, sat three young women,
rather demurely employed on millinery work, which was the
cover of a traffic in more precious commodities; but three
beautifuller creatures could hardly be seen. Two of them were
extremely fair, the eldest not above nineteen; and the third,
much about that age, was a piquant brunette, whose black
sparking eyes, and perfect harmony of features and shape, left
her nothing to envy in her fairer companions. Their dress too
had the more design in it, the less it appeared to have, being in a
taste of uniform correct neatness, and elegant simplicity. These
were the girls that composed the small domestic flock, which my
governess trained up with surprising order and management,
considering the giddy wildness of young girls once got upon the
loose. But then she never continued any in her house, whom,
after a due noviciate, she found un-tractable, or unwilling to
comply with the rules of it. Thus she had insensibly formed a
little family of love, in which the members found so sensibly
their account, in a rare alliance of pleasure and interest, and of a
necessary outward decency, with unbounded secret liberty, that
Mrs. Cole, who had picked them as much for their temper as
their beauty, governed them with ease to herself and them too.
To these pupils then of hers, whom she had prepared, she
presented me as a new boarder, and one that was to be
immediately admitted to all the intimacies of the house; upon
which these charming girls gave me all the marks of a welcome
reception, and indeed of being perfectly pleased with my figure,
that I could possibly expect from any of my own sex: but they
had been effectually brought to sacrifice all jealousy, or
competition of charms, to a common interest, and considered me
a partner that was bringing no despicable stock of goods into the
trade of the house. They gathered round me, viewed me on all
sides; and as my admission into this joyous troop made a little
holiday, the shew of work was laid aside; and Mrs. Cole giving
me up, with special recommendation, to their caresses and
entertainment, went about her ordinary business of the house.
The sameness of our sex, age, profession, and views, soon
creased as unreserved a freedom and intimacy as if we had been
for years acquainted. They took and shewed me the house, their
respective apartments, which were furnished with every article
of convenience and luxury; and above all, a spacious drawing-
room, where a select revelling band usually met, in general
parties of pleasure; the girls supping with their sparks, and
acting their wanton pranks with unbounded licentiousness;
whilst a defiance of awe, modesty or jealousy were their
standing rules, by which, according to the principles of their
society, whatever pleasure was lost on the side of sentiment,
was abundantly made up to the senses in the poignancy of
variety, and the charms of ease and luxury. The authors and
supporters of this secret institution would, in the height of their
humour, style themselves the restorers of the golden age and its
simplicity of pleasures, before their innocence became so
unjustly branded with the names of guilt and shame.
As soon then as the evening began, and the shew of a shop
was shut, the academy opened; the mask of mock-modesty was
completely taken off, and all the girls delivered over to their
respective calls of pleasure or interest with their men: and none
of that sex was promiscuously admitted, but only such as Mrs.
Cole was previously satisfied with their character and discretion.
In short, this was the safest, politest, and, at the same time, the
most thorough house of accommodation in town: every thing
being conducted so, that decency made no intrenchment upon
the most libertine pleasures; in the practice of which, too, the
choice familiars of the house had found the secret so rare and
difficult, of reconciling even all the refinements of taste and
delicacy, with the most gross and determinate gratifications of
sensuality.
After having consumed the morning in the dear endearments
and instructions of my new acquaintance, we went to dinner,
when Mrs. Cole, presiding at the head of her club, gave me the
first idea of her management and address, in inspiring these girls
with so sensible a love and respect for her. There was no
stiffness, no reserve, no airs of pique, or little jealousies, but all
was unaffectedly gay, cheerful and easy.
After dinner, Mrs. Cole, seconded by the young ladies,
acquainted me that there was a chapter to be held that night in
form, for the ceremony of my reception into the sisterhood; and
in which, with all due reserve to my maidenhead, that was to be
occasionally cooked up for the first proper chapman. I was to
undergo a ceremonial of initiation they were sure I should not be
displeased with.
Embarked as I was, and moreover captivated with the charms
of my new companions, I was too much prejudiced in favour of
any proposal they could make, to as much as hesitate an assent;
which, therefore, readily giving in the style of a carte blanche, I
received fresh kisses of compliment from them all, in approval of
my docility and good nature. Now I was "a sweet girl... I came
into things with a good grace... I was not affectedly coy... I
should be the pride of the house," and the like.
This point thus adjusted, the young women left Mrs. Cole to
talk and concert matters with me, when she explained to me,
that "I should be introduced that very evening, to four of her
best friends, one of whom she had, according to the custom of
the house, favoured with the preference of engaging me in the
first party of pleasure;" assuring me, at the same time, "that they
were all young gentlemen agreeable in their persons, and
unexceptionable in every respect; that united, and holding
together by the band of common pleasures, they composed the
chief support of her house, and made very liberal presents to the
girls that pleased and humoured them, so that they were,
properly speaking, the founders and patrons of this little
seraglio. Not but that she had, at proper seasons, other
customers to deal with, whom she stood less upon punctilio
with, than with these; for instance, it was not on one of them
she could attempt to pass me for a maid; they were not only too
knowing, too much town-bred to bite at such a bait, but they
were such generous benefactors to her, that it would be
unpardonable to think of it."
Amidst all the flutter and emotion which this promise of
pleasure, for such I conceived it, stirred up in me, I preserved so
much of the woman, as to feign just reluctance enough to make
some merit, of sacrificing it to the influence of my patroness,
whom I likewise, still in character, reminded of it perhaps being
right for me to go home and dress, in favour of my first
impressions.
But Mrs. Cole, in opposition to this, assured me, "that the
gentlemen I should be presented to were, by their rank and taste
of things, infinitely superior to the being touched with any glare
of dress or ornaments, such slick women rather confound and
overlay than set off their beauty with; that these veteran
voluptuaries knew better than not to hold them in the highest
contempt: they with whom the pure native charms alone could
pass current, and who would at any time leave a sallow, washy,
painted duchess on her own hands, for a ruddy, healthy firm
fleshed country maid; and as for my part, that nature had done
enough for me, to set me above owing the least favour to art;"
concluding withal, that for the instant occasion, there was no
dress like an undress.
 I thought my governess too good a judge of these matters, not
to be easily overruled by her: after which she went on preaching
very pathetically the doctrine of passive obedience and non-
resistance to all those arbitrary tastes of pleasure, which are by
some styled the refinements, and by others the depravations of
it; between whom it was not the business of a simple girl, who
was to profit by pleasing, to decide, but to conform to. Whilst I
was edifying by these wholesome lessons, tea was brought in,
and the young ladies, returning, joined company with us.
After a great deal of mixed chat, frolic and humour, one of
them, observing that there would be a good deal of time on and
before the assembly hour, proposed that each girl should
entertain the company with that critical period of her personal
history, in which she first exchanged the maiden state for
womanhood. The proposal was approved, with only one
restriction of Mrs. Cole, that she, on account of her age, and I,
on account of my titular maidenhead, should be excused, at least
till I had undergone the forms of the house. This obtained me a
dispensation, and the promotress of this amusement was desired
to begin.
Her name was Emily; a girl fair to excess, and whose limbs
were, if possible, too well made, since their plump fulness was
rather to the prejudice of that delicate slimness required by the
nicer judges of beauty; her eyes were blue, and streamed
inexpressible sweetness, and nothing could be prettier than her
mouth and lips, which closed over a range of the evenest and
whitest teeth. Thus she began:
"Neither my extraction, nor the most critical adventure of my
life, is sublime enough to impeach me of any vanity in the
advancement of the proposal you have approved of. My father
and mother were, and for aught I know, are still, farmers in the
country, not above forty miles from town: their barbarity to me,
in favour of a son, on whom alone they vouchsafed to bestow
their tenderness, had a thousand times determined me to fly
their house, and throw myself on the wide world; but, at length,
an accident forced me on this desperate attempt at the age of
fifteen. I had broken a chinabowl, the pride and idol of both
their hearts; and as an unmerciful beating was the least I had to
depend on at their hands, in the silliness of these tender years, I
left the house, and, at all adventures, took the road to London.
How my loss was resented I do not know, for till this instant I
have not heard a syllable about them. My whole stock was two
broad pieces of my godmother's, a few shillings, silver shoe-
buckles and a silver thimble. Thus equipped, with no more
clothes than the ordinary ones I had on my back, and frightened
at every foot or noise I heard behind me, I hurried on; and I
dare sweare, walked a dozen miles before I stopped, through
mere weariness and fatigue. At length I sat down on a style,
wept bitterly, and yet was still rather under increased
impressions of fear on the account of my escape; which made me
dread, worse than death, the going back to my unnatural
parents. Refreshed by this little repose, and relieved by my
tears, I was proceeding onward, when I was overtaken by a
sturdy country lad, who was going to London to see what he
could do for himself there, and, like me, had given his friends
the slip. He could not be above seventeen, was ruddy, well
featured enough, with uncombed flaxen hair, a little flapped hat,
kersey frock, yarn stockings, in short, a perfect plough boy. I
saw him come whistling behind me, with a bundle tied to the
end of a stick, his travelling equipage. We walked by one
another for some time without speaking; at length we joined
company, and agreed to keep together till we got to our journey's
end; what his designs or ideas were, I know not: the innocence
of mine I can solemnly protest.
"As night drew on, it became us to look out for some inn or
shelter; to which perplexity another was added, and that was,
what we should say for ourselves, if we were questioned. After
some puzzle, the young fellow started a proposal, which I
thought the finest that could be; and what was that? why, that
we should pass for husband and wife: I never dreamed of
consequences. We came presently, after having agreed on this
notable experience, to one of those hedge accommodations for
foot passengers, at the door of which stood an old crazy beldam,
who seeing us trudge by, invited us to lodge there. Glad of any
cover, we went in, and my fellow traveller, taking all upon him,
called for what the house afforded, and we supped together as
man and wife; which, considering our figures and ages, could
not have passed on any one but such as any thing could pass on.
But when bed-time came on, we had neither of us the courage to
contradict our first account of ourselves; and what was
extremely pleasant, the young lad seemed as perplexed as I was
how to evade lying together, which was so natural for the state
we had pretended to. Whilst we were in this quandary, the
landlady takes the candles, and lights us to our apartment,
through a long yard, at the end of which it stood, separate from
the body of the house. Thus we suffered ourselves to be
conducted, without saying a word in opposition to it; and there,
in a wretched room, with a bed answerable, we were left to pass
the night together, as a thing quite of course. For my part, I was
so incredibly innocent, as not even to think much more harm of
going into bed with the young man, than with one of our dairy
wenches; nor had he, perhaps, any other notions than those of
innocence, till such a fair occasion put them into his head.
"Before either of us undressed, however, he put out the
candle; and the bitterness of the weather made it a kind of
necessity for me to go into bed: slipping then my clothes off, I
crept under the bedclothes, where I found the young stripling
already nestled, and the touch of his warm flesh rather pleased
than alarmed me. I was indeed too much disturbed with the
novelty of my condition to be able to sleep; but then I had not
the least thought of harm. But oh! how powerful are the
instincts of nature! how little is there wanting to set them in
action! The young man, sliding his arm under my body, drew me
gently towards him, as if to keep himself and me warmer; and
the heat I felt from joining our breasts, kindled another that I
had hitherto never felt, and was, even then, a stranger to the
nature of. Emboldened, I suppose, by my easiness, he ventured
to kiss me, and I insensibly returned it; without knowing the
consequence of returning it: for, on this encouragement, he
slipped his hand all down from my breast to that part of me
where the sense of feeling is so exquisitely critical, as I then
experienced by its instant taking fire upon the touch, and
glowing with a strange tickling heat: there he pleased himself
and me, by feeling, till growing a little too bold with me, he hurt
me, and made me complain. Then he took my hand, which he
guided, not unwillingly on my side, between the twist of his
closed thighs, which were extremely warm; there he lodged and
pressed it, till raising it by degrees, he made me feel the proud
distinction of his sex from mine. I was frightened at the novelty,
and drew back my hand; yet, pressed and spurred on by
sensations of a strange pleasure, I could not help asking him
what that was for? He told me he would shew me if I would let
him; and without waiting for my answer, which he prevented by
stopping my mouth with kisses I was far from disrelishing, he
got upon me, and inserting one of his thighs between mine,
opened them so as to make way for himself, and fixed me to his
purpose; whilst I was so much out of my usual sense, so
subdued by the present power of a new one, that, between far
and desire, I lay utter passive, till the piercing pain rouzed and
made me cry out. But it was too late: he was too firm fixed in
the saddle for me to compass flinging him, with all the struggles
I could use, some of which only served to further his point, and
at length an irresistible thrust murdered at once my maidenhead,
and almost me. I now lay a bleeding witness of the necessity
imposed on our sex, to gather the first honey off the thorns.
"But the pleasure rising as the pain subsided, I was soon
reconciled to fresh trials, and before morning, nothing on earth
could be dearer to me than this rifler of my virgin sweets: he
was every thing to me now.
"How we agreed to join fortunes: how we came up to town
together, where we lived some time, till necessity-parted us, and
drove me into this course of life, to which I had been long ago
bettered and torn to pieces before I came to this age, as much
through my easiness, as through inclination, had it not been for
my finding refuge in this house: these are all circumstances
which pass the mark I proposed, so that here my narrative
ends."
 In the order of our sitting, it was Harriet's turn to go on.
Amongst all the beauties of our sex, that I had before, or have
since seen, few indeed were the forms that could dispute
excellence with her's; it was not delicate, but delicacy itself
incarnate, such was the symmetry of her small but exactly
fashioned limbs. Her complexion, fair as it was, appeared yet
more fair, from the effect of two black eyes, the brilliancy of
which gave her face more vivacity than belonged to the colour of
it, which was only defended from paleness, by a sweetly
pleasing blush in her cheeks, that grew fainter and fainter, till at
length it died away insensibly into the overbearing white. Then
her miniature features joined to finish the extreme sweetness of
it, which was not belied by that of a temper turned to indolence,
languor, and the pleasures of love. Pressed to subscribe her
contingent, she smiled, blushed a little, and thus complied with
our desires:
"My father was neither better nor worse than a miller near the
city of York; and both he and my mother dying whilst I was an
infant, I fell under the care of a widow and childless aunt,
housekeeper to my lord N..., at his seat in the county of...,
where she brought me up with all imaginable tenderness. I was
not seventeen, as I am not now eighteen, before I had, on
account of my person purely (for fortune I had notoriously
none), several advantageous proposals; but whether nature was
slow in making me sensible in her favourite passion, or that I
had not seen any of the other sex who had stirred up the least
emotion or curiosity to be better acquainted with it, I had, till
that age, preserved a perfect innocence, even of thought: whilst
my fears of I did not now well know what, made me no more
desirous of marrying than of dying. My aunt, good woman,
favoured my timorousness, which she loooked on as childish
affection, that her own experience might probably assure her
would wear off in time, and gave my suitors proper answers for
me.
"The family had not been down at that seat for years, so that
it was neglected, and committed entirely to my aunt, and two
old domestics to take care of it. Thus I had the full range of a
spacious lonely house and gardens, situated at about half a mile
distance from any other habitation, except, perhaps, a straggling
cottage or so.
"Here, in tranquillity and innocence, I grew up without any
memorable accident, till one fatal day I had, as I had often done
before, left my aunt asleep, and secure for some hours, after
dinner; and resorting to a kind of ancient summer house, at
some distance from the house, I carried my work with me, and
sat over a rivulet, which its door and window faced upon. Here I
fell into a gentle breathing slumber, which stole upon my senses,
as they fainted under the excessive heat of the season at that
hour; a cane couch, with my work basked for a pillow, were all
the conveniences of my short repose; for I was soon awaked and
alarmed by a flounce, and noise of splashing in the water. I got
up to see what was the matter; and what indeed should it be but
the son of a neighbouring gentleman, as I afterwards found (for I
had never seen him before), who had strayed that way with his
gun, and heated by his sport, and the sultriness of the day, had
been tempted by the freshness of the clear stream; so that
presently stripping, he jumped into it on the other side, which
bordered on a wood, some trees whereof, inclined down to the
water, formed a pleasing shady recess, commodious to undress
and leave his clothes under.
"My first emotions at the sight of this youth, naked in the
water, were, with all imaginable respect to truth, those of
surprise and fear; and, in course, I should immediately have run
out, had not my modesty, fatally for itself, interposed the
objection of the door and window being so situated, that it was
scarce possible to get out, and make my way along the bank to
the house, without his seeing me: which I could not bear the
thought of, so much ashamed and confounded was I at having
seen him. Condemned then to stay till his departure should
release me, I was greatly embarrassed how to dispose of myself:
I kept some time betwixt terror and modesty, even from looking
through the window, which being an old fashioned casement,
without any light behind me, could hardly betray any one's being
there to him from within; then the door was so secure, that
without violence, or my own consent, there was no opening it
from without.
"But now, by my own experience, I found it too true, that
objects which affright us, when we cannot get from them, draw
our eyes as forcibly as those that please us. I could not long
withstand that nameless impulse, which, without any desire of
this novel sight, compelled me towards it; emboldened too by
my certainty of being at once unseen and safe, I ventured by
degrees to cast my eyes on an object so terrible and alarming to
my virgin modesty as a naked man.
"But as I snatched a look, the first gleam that struck me, was
in general the dewy lustre of the whitest skin imaginable, which
the sun playing upon made the reflection of it perfectly beamy.
His face, in the confusion I was in, I could not well distinguish
the lineamints of, any farther than that there was a great deal of
youth and freshness in it. The frolic and various play of all his
fine polished limbs, as they appeared above the surface, in the
course of his swimming or wantoning with the water, amused
and insensibly delighted me; sometimes he lay motionless, on his
back, waterborne, and dragging after him a fine head of hair,
that, floating, swept the stream in a bush of black curls. Then
the overflowing water would make a separation between his
breast and glossy white belly; at the bottom of which I could not
escape observing so remarkable a distinction, as a black mossy
tuft, out of which appeared to emerge a round, softish, limber,
white something, that played every way, with ever the least
motion or whirling eddy. I cannot say but that part chiefly, by a
kind of natural instinct, attracted, detained, captivated my
attention: it was out of the power of all my modesty to
command my eye away from it; and seeing nothing so very
dreadful in its appearance, I insensibly looked away all my fears:
but as fast as they gave way, new desires and strange wishes
took place, and I melted as I gazed. The fire of nature, that had
so long lain dormant or concealed, began to break out, and made
me feel my sex for the first time. He had now changed his
posture, and swam prone on his belly, striking out with his legs
and arms; finer modeled than which could not have been cast,
whilst his floating locks played over a neck and shoulders whose
whiteness they delightfully set off. Then the luxuriant swell of
flesh that rose from the small of his back, and terminates its
double cope at where the thighs are set off, perfectly dazzled one
with its watery glistening gloss.
"By this time I was so affected by this inward involution of
sentiments, so softened by this sight, that now, betrayed into a
sudden transition from extreme fears to extreme desires, I found
these last so strong upon me, the heat of the weather too
perhaps conspiring to exalt their rage, that nature almost fainted
under them. Not that I so much as knew precisely what was
wanting to me: my only thought was, that so sweet a creature,
as this youth seemed to me, could only make me happy; but
then, the little likelihood there was of compassing an
acquaintance with him, or perhaps of ever seeing him again,
dashed my desires, and turned them into torments. I was still
gazing, with all the powers of my sight, on this bewitching
object, when, in an instant, down he went. I had heard of such
things as a cramp seizing on even the best swimmers, and
occasioning their being drowned; and imagining this so sudden
eclipse to be owing to it, the inconceivable fondness this
unknown lad had given birth to, distracted me with the most
killing terrors; insomuch, that my concern giving the wings, I
flew to the door, opened it, ran down to the canal, guided
thither by the madness of my fears for him, and the intense
desire of being an instrument to save him, though I was ignorant
how, or by what means to effect it: but was it for fears, and a
passion so sudden as mine, to reason! All this took up scarce the
space of a few moments. I had then just life enough to reach the
green borders of the waterpiece, where wildly looking round for
the young man, and missing him still, my fright and concern
sunk me down in a deep swoon, which must have lasted me
some time; for I did not come to myself, till I was roused out of
it by a sense of pain that pierced me to the vitals, and awaked
me to the the most surprising circumstance of finding myself not
only in the arms of this very young gentleman I had been so
solicitous to save; but taken at such an advantage in my
unresisting condition, that he had actually completed his
entrance into me so far, that weakened as I was by all the
preceding conflicts of mind I had suffered, and struck dumb by
the violence of my surprise, I had neither the power to cry out,
nor the strength to disengage myself from his strenuous
embraces, before, urging his point, he had forced his way and
completely triumphed over my virginity, as he might now as well
see by the streams of blood that followed his drawing out, as he
had felt by the difficulties he had met with consummating his
penetration. But the sight of the blood, and the sense of my
condition, had (as he told me afterwards), since the
ungovernable rage of his passion was somewhat appeased, now
wrought so far on him, that at all risks, even of the worst
consequences, he could not find in his heart to leave me, and
make off, which he might easily have done. I still lay all
discomposed in bleeding ruin, palpitating, speechless, unable to
get off, and frightened, and fluttering like a poor wounded
partridge, and ready to faint away again at the sense of what
had befallen me. The young gentleman was by me, kneeling,
kissing my hand, and with tears in his eyes, beseeching me to
forgive him, and offering all the reparation in his power. It is
certain that could I, at the instant of regaining my senses, have
called out, or taken the bloodiest revenge, I would not be stuck
at it; the violation was attended too with such aggravating
circumstances, though he was ignorant of them, since it was to
my concern for the preservation of his life, that I owed my ruin.
"But how quick is the shift of passions from one extreme to
another! and how little are they acquainted with the human
heart who dispute it! I could not see this amiable criminal, so
suddenly the first object of my love, and as suddenly of my just
hate, on his knees, bedewing my hands with his tears, without
relenting. He was still stark-naked, but my modesty had been
already too much wounded, in essentials, to be so much shocked
as I should have otherwise been with appearances only; in short,
my anger ebbed so fast, and the tide of love returned so strong
upon me, that I felt it a point of my own happiness to forgive
him. The reproaches I made him were murmured in so soft a
tone, my eyes met his with such glances, expressing more
languor than resentment, that he could not but presume his
forgiveness was at no desperate distance; but still he would not
quit his posture of submission, till I had pronounced his pardon
in form; which after the most fervent entreaties, protestations,
and promises, I had not the power to withhold. On which, with
the utmost marks of a fear of again offending, he ventured to
kiss my lips, which I neither declined nor resented: but on my
mild expostulation with him upon the barbarity of his treatment,
he explained the mystery of my ruin, if not entirely to the
clearance, at least much to the alleviation of his guilt, in the eyes
of a judge so partial in his favour as I was grown.
"It seems that the circumstance of his going down, or sinking,
which in my extreme ignorance I had mistaken for something
very fatal, was no other than a trick of diving, which I had not
ever heard, or at least attended o, the mention of: and he was so
long-breathed at it, that in the few moments in which I ran out
to save him, he had not yet emerged, before I fell into the
swoon, in which, as he rose, seeing me extended on the bank,
his first idea was, that some young woman was upon some
design of frolic or diversion with him, for he knew I could not
have fallen asleep there without his having seen me before:
agreebly to which notion he had ventured to approach, and
finding me without sign of life, and still perplexed as he was
what to think of the adventure, he took me in his arms at all
hazards, and carried me into the summer-house, of which he
observed the door open: there he laid me down on the couch,
and tried, as he protested in good faith, by several means to
bring me to myself again, till fired, as he said, beyond all
bearing by the sight and touch of several parts of me, which
were unguardedly exposed to him, he could no longer govern his
passion; and the less, as he was not quite sure that his first idea
of this swoon being a feint, was not the very truth of the case;
seduced then by this flattering notion, and overcome by the
present, as he styled them, super-human temptations, combined
with the solitude and seeming security of the attempt, he was
not enough his own master not to make it. Leaving me then just
only whilst he fastened the door, he returned with redoubled
eagerness to his prey: when, finding me still entranced, he
ventured to place me as he pleased, whilst I felt, no more than
the dead, what he was about, till the pain he put me to roused
me just in time enough to be witness of a triumph I was not able
to defeat, and now scarce regretted: for as he talked, the tone of
his voice sounded, methought, so sweetly in my ears, the
sensible nearness of so new and interesting an object to me,
wrought so powerfully upon me, that, in the rising perception of
things in a new and pleasing light, I lost all sense of the past
injury. The young gentleman soon discerned the symptoms of a
reconciliation in my softened looks, and hastening to receive the
seal of it from my lips, pressed them tenderly to pass his pardon
in the return of a kiss so melting fiery, that the impression of it
being carried to my heart, and thence to my new discovered
sphere of Venus, I was melted into a softness that could refuse
him nothing. When now he managed his caresses and
endearments so artfully, as to insinuate the most soothing
consolations for the past pain and the most pleasing
expectations of future pleasure, but whilst mere modesty kept
my eyes from seeing his and rather declined them, I had a
glimpse of that instrument of mischief which was now, obviously
even to me, who had scarce had snatches of a comparative
observation of it, resuming its capacity to renew it, and grew
greatly alarming with its increase of size, as he bore it no doubt
designedly, hard and stiff against one of my hands carelessly
dropt; but then he employed such tender prefacing, such
winning progressions, that my returning passion of desire being
now so strongly prompted by the engaging circumstances of the
sight and incendiary touch of his naked glowing beauties, I yield
at length at the force of the present impressions, and he
obtained of my tacit blushing consent all the gratifications of
pleasure left in the power of my poor person to bestow, after he
had cropt its richest flower, during my suspension of life, and
abilities to guard it. Here, according to the rule laid down, I
should stop; but I am so much in notion, that I could not if I
would. I shall only add, however, that I got home without the
least discovery, or suspicion of what had happened. I met my
young ravisher several times after, whom I now passionately
loved and who, though not of age to claim a small but
independent fortune, would have married me; but as the
accident that prevented it, and its consequences, which threw
me on the public, contain matters too moving and serious to
introduce at present, I cut short here."
Louisa, the brunette whom I mentioned at first, now took her
turn to treat the company with her history. I have already hinted
to you the graces of her person, than which nothing could be
more exquisitely touching; I repeat touching, as a just distinction
from striking, which is ever a less lasting effect, and more
generally belongs to the fair complexions; but leaving that
decision to every one's taste, I proceed to give you Louisa's
narrative as follows:
"According to practical maxims of life, I ought to boast of my
birth, since I owe it to pure love, without marriage; but this I
know, it was scarce possible to inherit a stronger propensity to
that cause of my being than I did. I was the rare production of
the first essay of a journeyman cabinet-maker, on his master's
maid: the consequence of which was a big belly, and the loss of
a place. He was not in circumstances to do much for her; and
yet, after all this blemish, she found means, after she had dropt
her burthen, and disposed of me to a poor relation in the
country, to repair it by marrying a pastry-cook here in London,
in thriving business; on whom she soon, under favour of the
complete ascendant he had given her over him, passed me for a
child she had by her first husband. I had, on that footing, been
taken home, and was not six years old when this father-in-law
died, and left my mother in tolerable circumstances, and without
any children by him. As to my natural father, he had betaken
himself to the sea; where, when the truth of things came out, I
was told that he died, not immensely rich you may think, since
he was no more than a common sailor. As I grew up, under the
eyes of my mother, who kept on the business, I could not but
see, in her severe watchfulness, the marks of a slip, which she
did not care should be hereditary; but we no more choose our
passions than our features or complexions, and the bent of mine
was so strong to the forbidden pleasure, that it got the better, at
length, of all her care and precaution. I was scarce twelve years
old, before that part which she wanted so much to keep out of
harm's way, made me feel its impatience to be taken notice of,
and come into play; already had it put forth the signs of
forwardness in the sprout of a soft down over it, which had
often fluttered, and I might also say, grown under my constant
touch and visitation, so pleased was I with what I took to be a
kind of title to womanhood, that state I pined to be entered of,
for the pleasures I conceived were annexed to it; and now the
growing importance of that part to me, and the new sensations
in it, demolished at once all my girlish play-things and
amusements. Nature now pointed me strongly to more solid
diversions, while all the stings of desire settled so fiercely in that
little centre of them, that I could not mistake the spot I wanted
a playfellow in.
"I now shunned all company in which there was no hopes of
coming at the object of my longings, and used to shut myself up,
to indulge in solitude some tender meditation on the pleasure I
strongly perceived the overture of, in feeling and examining what
nature assured me must be the chosen avenue, the gates for
unknown bliss to enter at, that I panted after.
"But these meditations only increased my disorder, and blew
the fire that consumed me. I was yet worse when, yielding at
length to the insupportable irritations of the little fairy charm
that tormented me, I seized it with my fingers, teazing it to no
end. Sometimes, in the furious excitations of desire, I threw
myself on the bed, spread my thighs abroad, and lay as it were
expecting the longed-for relief, till finding my illusion, I shut and
squeezed them together again, burning and fretting. In short,
this develish thing, with its impetuous girds and itching fires,
led me such a life, that I could neither, night or day, be at peace
with it or myself. In time, however, I thought I had gained a
prodigious prize, when figuring to myself that my fingers were
something of the shape of what I pined for, I worked my way in
with one of them with great agitation and delight; yet not
without pain too did I deflower myself as far as it could reach;
proceeding with such a fury of passion, in this solitary and last
shift of pleasure, as extended me at length breathless on the bed
in an amorous melting trance.
"But frequency of use dulling the sensation, I soon began to
perceive that this work was but a paultry shallow expedient, that
went but a little way to relieve me, and rather raised more flame
than its dry and insignificant titillation could rightly appease.
"Man alone, I almost instinctively knew, as well as by what I
had industriously picked up at weddings and christenings, was
possessed of the only remedy that could reduce this rebellious
disorder; but watched and overlooked as I was, how to come at
it was the point, and that, to all appearance, an invincible one;
not that I did not rack my brains and invention how at once to
elude my mothers vigilance, and procure myself the satisfaction
of my impetuous curiosity and longings for this mighty and
untasted pleasure. At length, however, a singular chance did at
once the work of a long course of alertness. One day that we had
dined at an acquaintance over the way, together with a
gentlewoman-lodger that occupied the first floor of our house,
there started an indispensable necessity for my mother's going
down to Greenwich to accompany her: the party was settled,
when I do not know what genius whispered me to plead a
headache, which I certainly had not, against my being included
in a jaunt that I had not the least relish for. The pretext,
however, passed, and my mother, with much reluctance,
prevailed with herself to go without me; but took particular care
to see me safe home, where she consigned me into the hands of
an old trusty maidservants, who served in the shop, for we had
not a male creature in the house.
"As soon as she was gone, I told the maid I would go up and
lie down on our lodger's bed, mine not being made, with a
charge to her at the same time not to disturb me, as it was only
rest I wanted. This injunction probably proved of eminent
service to me. As soon as I was got into the bedchamber, I
unlaced my stays, and threw myself on the outside of the
bedclothes, in all the loosest undress. Here I gave myself up to
the old insipid privy shifts of my self-viewing, self-touching self-
enjoying, in fine, to all the means of self knowledge I could
devise, in search of the pleasure that fled before me, and
tantalized with that unknown something that was out of my
reach; thus all only served to enflame myself, and to provoke
violently my desires, whilst the one thing needful to their
satisfaction was not at hand, and I could have bit my finger for
representing it so ill. After then wearying and fatiguing myself
with grasping shadows, whilst that most sensible part of me
disdained to content itself with less than realities, the strong
yearnings, the urgent struggles of nature towards the melting
relief, and the extreme self-agitations I had used to come at it,
had wearied and thrown me into a kind of unquiet sleep: for, if I
tossed and threw about my limbs in proportion to the distraction
of my dreams, as I had reason to believe I did, a bystander could
not have helped seeing all for love. And one there was it seems;
for waking out of my very short slumber, I found my hand
locked in that of a young man, who was. kneeling at my bed-
side, and begging my pardon for his boldness: but that being a
son to the lady to whom, this bed-chamber, he knew, belonged,
he had slipped by the servant of the shop, as he supposed,
unperceived, when finding me asleep, his first ideas were to
withdraw; but that he had been fixed and detained there by a
power he could better account for, than resist.
"What shall I say? my emotions of fear and surprise were
instantly subdued by those of the pleasure I bespoke in great
presence of mind from the turn this adventure might take. He
seemed to me no other than a pitying angel, dropt out of the
clouds: for he was young and perfectly handsome, which was
more than even I had asked for, man, in general, being all that
my utmost desires had pointed at. I thought then I could not put
too much encouragement into my eyes and voice; I regretted no
leading advances; no matter for his after-opinion of my
forwardness, so it might bring him to the point of answering my
pressing demands of present case; it was not now with his
thoughts but his actions that my business immediately lay. I
raised then my head, and told him, in a soft tone, that tended to
prescribe the same key to him, that his mamma was gone out
and would not return till late at night: which I thought no bad
hint; but as it proved, I had nothing of a novice to deal with.
The impressions I had made on him from the discoveries I had
betrayed of my person in the disordered motions of it, during his
view of me asleep, had, as he afterwards told me, so fixed and
charmingly prepared him, that, had I known his dispositions, I
had more to hope from his violence, than to fear from his
respect; and even less than the extreme tenderness which I
threw into my voice and eyes, would have served to encourage
him to make the most of the opportunity. Finding then that his
kisses, imprinted on my hand, were taken as tamely as he could
wish, he rose to my lips; and glewing his to them, made me so
faint with overcoming joy and pleasure, that I fell back, and he
with me, in course, on the bed, upon which I had, by insensibly
shifting from the side to near the middle, invitingly, made room
for him. He is now lain down by me, and the minutes being too
precious to consume in ultimate ceremony, or dalliance, my
youth proceeds immediately to those extremities, which all my
looks, humming and palpitations, had assured him he might
attempt without the fear of a repulse: those rogues the men,
read us admirably on these occasions. I lay then at length
panting for the imminent attack, with wishes far beyond my
fears, and for which it was scarce possible for a girl, barely
thirteen, but tall and well grown, to have better dispositions. He
threw up my petticoat and shift, whilst my thighs were, by an
instinct of nature, unfolded to their best; and my desires had so
thoroughly destroyed all modesty in me, that even their being
now naked and all laid open to him, was part of the prelude that
pleasure deepened my blushes at, more than same. But when his
hand, and touches, naturally attracted to their center, made me
feel all their wantonness and warmth in, and round it, oh! how
immensely different a sense of things, did I perceive there, than
when under my own insipid handling! And now his waistcoat
was unbuttoned, and the confinement of the breeches burst
through, when out started to view the amazing, pleasing object
of all my wishes, all my dreams, all my love, the king member
indeed! I gazed at, I devoured it, at length and breadth, with my
eyes intently directed to it, till his; getting upon me, and placing
between my thighs, took from me the enjoyment of its sight, to
give me a far more grateful one, in its touch, in that part where
its touch is so exquisitely affecting. Applying it then to the
minute opening, for such at that age it certainly was, I met with
too much good will, I felt with too great a rapture of pleasure
the first insertion of it, to heed much the pain that followed: I
thought nothing too dear to pay for this the richest treat of the
sense; so that, split up, torn, bleeding, mangled I was still
superiorly pleased, and hugged the author of all this delicious
ruin. But when, soon after, he made his second attack, sore as
every thing was, the smart was soon put away by the sovereign
cordial; all my soft complainings were silenced, and the pain
melting fast away into pleasure. I abandoned myself over to all
its transports, and gave it the full possession of my whole body
and soul; for now all thought was at an end with me; I lived in
what I felt only. And who could describe those feelings, those
agitations, yet exalted by the charm of their novelty and
surprise? when that part of me which had so hungered for the
dear morsel that now so delightfully crammed, forced all my
vital sensations to fix their home there, during the stay of my
beloved guest; who too soon paid me for his hearty welcome, in
a dissolvent, richer far than that I have heard of some queen
treating her paramour with, in liquified pearl, and ravishingly
poured into me, where, now myself too much melted to give it a
dry reception, I hailed it with the warmest confluence on my
side, amidst all those ecstatic raptures, not unfamiliar I presume
to this good company. Thus, however, I arrived at the very top
of all my wishes, by an accident unexpected indeed, but not so
wonderful; for this young gentleman was just arrived in town
from college, and came familiarly to his mother at her
apartment, where he had once before been, though, by mere
chance. I had not seen him: so that we knew one another by
hearing only; and finding me stretched on his mother's bed, he
readily concluded from her description, who it was. The rest you
know.
 "This affair had however no ruinous consequences, the young
gentleman escaping then, and many more times undiscovered.
But the warmth of my constitution, that made the pleasures of
love a kind of necessary of life to me, having betrayed me into
indiscretions fatal to my private fortune, I fell at length to the
public; from which, it is probable, I might have met with the
worst of ruin, if my better fate had not thrown me into this safe
and agreeable refuge."
Here Louisa ended; and these little histories having brought
the time for the girls to retire, and to prepare for the revels of
the evening, I staid with Mrs. Cole, till Emily came, and told us
the company was met, and waited for us.
Mrs. Cole on this, taking me by the hand, with a smile of
encouragement, led me up stairs, preceded by Louisa, who was
come to hasten us, and lighted us with two candles, one in each
hand.
On the landing-place of the first pair of stairs, we were met by
a young gentleman, extremely well dressed, and a very pretty
figure, to whom I was to be indebted for the first essay of the
pleasures of the house. He saluted me with great gallantry, and
handed me into the drawing room, the floor of which was
overspread with a Turkey carpet, and all its furniture
voluptuously adapted to every demand of the most studied
luxury; now too it was, by means of a profuse illumination,
enlivened by a light scarce inferior, and perhaps more favourable
to joy, more tenderly pleasing, than that of broad sunshine.
On my entrance into the room, I had the satisfaction! to hear
a buzz of approbation run through the whole company, which
now consisted of four gentlemen, including my particular (this
was the cant term of the house for one's gallant for the time), the
three young-women, in a neat flowing dishabille, the mistress of
the academy, and myself. I was welcomed and saluted by a kiss
all round, in which, however, it was easy to-discover, in the
superior warmth of that of the men, the distinction of the sexes.
 Awed, and confounded as I was, at seeing myself surrounded,
caressed, and made court to by so many strangers, I could not
immediately familiarize myself to all that air of gaiety and joy,
which dictated their compliments, and animated their caresses.
They assured me that I was so perfectly to their taste, as to
have but one fault against me, which I might easily be cured of,
and that was my modesty: this, they observed, might pass for a
beauty the more with those who wanted it for a heigh tener; but
their maxim was, that it was an impertinent mixture, and dashed
the cup so as to spoil the sincere draught of pleasure; they
considered it accordingly as their mortal enemy, and gave it no
quarter wherever they met with it. This was a prologue not
unworthy of the revels that ensued.
In the midst of all the frolic and wantonness, which this
joyous band had presently, and all naturally, run into, an elegant
supper was served in, and we sat down to it, my spark elect
placing himself next to me, and the other couples without order
or ceremony. The delicate cheer and good wine soon banished all
reserve; the conversation grew as lively as could be wished,
without taking too loose a turn: these professors of pleasure
knew too well, how to stale impressions of it, or evaporate the
imagination of words, before the time of action. Kisses however
were snatched at times, or where a handkerchief round the neck
interposed its feeble barrier, it was not extremely respected: the
hands of the men went to work with their usual petulance, till
the provocation on both sides rose to such a pitch, that my
particulars's proposal for beginning the country dances was
received with instant assent: for, as he laughingly added, he
fancied the instruments were in tune. This was a signal for
preparation, that the complaisant Mrs. Cole, who understood
life, took for her cue of disappearing; no longer so fit for
personal service herself, and content with having settled the
order of battle, she left us the field, to fight it out at discretion.
As soon as she was gone, the table was removed from the
middle, and became a side-board; a couch was brought into its
place, of which when I whisperingly inquired the reason, of my
particular, he told me, "that as it was chiefly on my account that
his convention was met, the parties intended at once to humour
their taste of variety in pleasures, and by an open public
enjoyment, to see me broke of any taint of reserve or modesty,
which they looked on as the poison of joy; that though they
occasionally preached pleasure, and lived up to the text, they
did not enthusiastically set up for missionaries, and only
indulged themselves in the delights of a practical instruction of
all the pretty women they liked well enough to bestow it upon,
and who fell properly in the way of it; but that as such a
proposal might be too violent, too shocking for a young
beginner, the old standers were to set an example, which he
hoped I would not be averse to follow, since it was to him I was
devolved in favour of the first experiment; but that still I was
perfectly at my liberty to refuse the party, which being in its
nature one of pleasure, supposed an exclusion of all force or
constraint."
My countenance expressed, no doubt, my surprise as my
silence did my acquiescence. I was now embarked, and
thoroughly determined on any voyage the company would take
me on.
The first that stood up, to open the ball, were a cornet of
horse, and that sweetest of olive-beauties, the soft and amorous
Louisa. He led her to the couch (nothing loth), on which he gave
her the fall, and extended her at length with an air of roughness
and vigour, relishing high of amorous eagerness and impatience.
The girl, spreading herself to the best advantage, with her head
upon the pillow, was so concentered in that she was about, that
our presence was the least of her care and concern. Her
petticoats, thrown up with her shift, discovered to the company
the finest turned legs and thighs that could be imagined, and in
broad display, that gave us a full view of that delicious cleft of
flesh, into which the pleasing hair, grown mount over it, parted
and presented a most inviting entrance, between two close
hedges, delicately soft and pouting. Her gallant was now ready,
having disencumbered himself from his clothes, overloaded with
lace, and presently, his shirt removed, shewed us his forces at
high plight, bandied and ready for action. But giving us no time
to consider the dimensions, he threw himself instantly over his
charming antagonist who received him as he pushed at once
dead at mark, like a heroine, without flinching; for surely never
was girl constitutionally truer to the taste of joy, or sincerer in
the expressions of its sensations, than she was: we could observe
pleasure lighten in her eyes, as he introduced his plenipotentiary
instrument into her; till, at length, having indulged her to its
utmost reach, its irritations grew so violent, and gave her the
spurs so furiously, that collected within herself, and lost to every
thing but the enjoyment of her favourite feelings, she retarded
his thrusts with a just concert of spring heaves, keeping time so
exactly with the most pathetic sighs, that one might have
numbered the strokes in agitation by their distinct murmurs,
whilst her active limbs kept wreathing and intertwisting with
his, in convulsive folds: then the turtle-billing kisses, and the
poignant painless lovebites, which they both exchanged, in a
rage of delight, all conspiring towards the melting period. It soon
came on, when Louisa, in the ravings of her pleasure-frensy,
impotent of all restraint, cried out: "Oh Sir!... Good Sir! pray do
not spare me! ah! ah!..." All her accents now faultering into
heart-fetched sighs, she closed her eyes in the sweet death, in
the instant of which we could easily see the signs in the quiet,
dying, languid posture of her late so furious driver, who was
stopped of a sudden, breathing short, panting, and, for that
time, giving up the spirit of pleasure. As soon as he was
dismounted, Louisa sprung up, shook her petticoats, and
running up to me, gave me a kiss, and drew me to the side-
board, to which she was herself handed by her gallant, where
they made me pledge them in a glass of wine, and toast a droll
health of Louisa's proposal in high frolic.
By this time the second couple was ready to enter the lists:
which were a young baronet, and that delicatest of charmers, the
winning, tender Harriet. My gentle esquire came to acquaint me
with it, and brought me back to the scene of action.
And, surely, never did one of her profession accompany her
dispositions, for the barefaced part she was engaged to play,
with such a peculiar grace of sweetness, modesty and yielding
coyness, as she did. All her air and motions breathed only
unreserved, unlimited complaisance without the least mixture of
impudence, or prostitution. But what was yet more surprising,
her spark elect, in the midst of the dissolution of a public open
enjoyment, doated on her to distraction, and had, by dint of love
and sentiments, touched her heart, though for a while the
restraint of their engagement to the house laid him under a kind
of necessity of complying with an institution which himself had
had the greatest share establishing.
Harriet was then led to the vacant couch by her gallant,
blushing as she looked at me, and with eyes made to justify any
thing, tenderly bespeaking of me the most favourable
construction of the step she was thus irresistibly drawn into.
Her lover, for such he was, sat her down at the foot of the
couch, and passing his arm round her neck, preluded with a kiss
fervently applied to her lips, that visibly gave her life and spirit
to go through with the scene; and as he kissed, he gently
inclined her head, till it fell back on a pillow disposed to receive
it, and leaning himself down all the way with her, at once
countenanced and endeared her fall to her. There, as if he had
guessed our wishes, or meant to gratify at once his pleasure and
his pride, in being the master, by the title of present possession,
of beauties delicate beyond imagination, he discovered her
breast to his own touch, and our common view; but oh! what
delicious manual of love devotion; how inimitable fine moulded!
small, round, firm, and excellently white; then the grain of their
skin, so soothing, so flattering to the touch! and of beauty. When
he had feasted his eyes with the their nipples, that crowned
them, the sweetest buds touch and perusal, feasted his lips with
kisses of the highest relish, imprinted on those all delicious twin-
orbs, he proceeded downwards.
Her legs still kept the ground; and now, with the tenderest
attention not to shock or alarm her too suddenly, he, by degrees,
rather stole than rolled up her petticoats; at which, as if a signal
had been given, Louisa and Emily took hold of her legs, in pure
wantonness, and, in ease to her, kept them stretched wide
abroad. Then lay exposed, or, to speak more properly, displayed
the greatest parade in nature of female charms. The whole
company, who, except myself, had often seen them, seemed as
much dazzled, surprised and delighted, as any one could be who
had now beheld them for the first time. Beauties so excessive
could not but enjoy the privileges of eternal novelty. Her thighs
were so exquisitely fashioned, that either more in, or more out of
flesh than they were, they would have declined from that point
of perfection they presented. But what infinitely enriched and
adorned them, was the sweet intersection formed, where they
met, at the bottom of the smoothest, roundest, whitest belly, by
that central furrow which nature had sunk there, between the
soft relievo of two pouting ridges, and which, in this girl, was in
perfect symmetry of delicacy and miniature with the rest of her
frame. No! nothing in nature could be of a beautifuller cut; then,
the dark umbrage of the downy spring moss that over-arched it,
bestowed, on the luxury of the landscape, a touching warmth, a
tender finishing, beyond the expression of words, or even the
paint of thought.
Her truly enamoured gallant, who had stood absorbed and
engrossed by the pleasure of the sight long enough to afford us
time to feast ours (no fear of glutting!) addressed himself at
length to the materials of enjoyment, and lifting the linen veil
that hung between us and his master member of the revels,
exhibited one whose eminent size proclaimed the owner a true
woman's hero. He was, besides in every other respect, an
accomplished gentleman, and in the bloom and vigour of youth.
Standing then between Harriet's legs, which were supported by
her two companions at their widest extension, with one hand he
gently disclosed the lips of that luscious mouth of nature, whilst
with the other, he stooped his mighty machine to its lure, from
the height of his stiff stand-up towards his belly; the lips, kept
open by his fingers, received its broad shelving head of coral
hue: and when he had nestled it in, he hovered there a little,
and the girls then delivered over to his hips the agreeable office
of supporting her thighs; and now, as if he meant to spin out his
pleasure, and give it the more play for its life, he passed up his
instrument so slow that we lost sight of it inch by inch, till at
length it was wholly taken into the soft laboratory of love, and
the mossy mounts of each fairly met together. In the mean time,
we could plainly mark the prodigious effect the progressions of
this delightful energy wrought in this delicious girl, gradually
heightening her beauty as they heightened her pleasure. Her
countenance and whole frame grew more animated; the faint
blush of her cheeks, gaining ground on the white, deepened into
a florid vivid vermillion glow, her naturally brilliant eyes now
sparkled with ten-fold lustre; her languor was vanished, and she
appeared quick, spirited and alive all over. He had now fixed,
nailed, this tender creature, with his home-driven wedge, so that
she lay passive by force, and unable to stir, till beginning to play
a strain of arms against this vein of delicacy, as he urged the to-
and-fro con-friction, he awakened, roused, and touched her so to
the heart, that unable to contain herself, she could not but reply
to his motions, as briskly as her nicety of frame would admit of,
till the raging stings of the pleasure rising towards the point,
made her wild with the intolerable sensations of it, and she now
threw her legs and arms about at random, as she lay lost in the
sweet transport; which on his side declared itself by quicker,
eager thrusts, convulsive gasps, burning sighs, swift laborious
breathing, eyes darting humid fires: all faithful tokens of the
imminent approaches of the last gasp of joy. It came on at
length: the baronet led the extasy, which she critically joined in,
as she felt the melting symptoms from him, in the nick of which,
gluing more ardently than ever his lips to hers, he shewed all the
signs of that agony of bliss being strong upon him, in which he
gave her the finishing titillation; inly thrilled with which, we saw
plainly that she answered it down with all effusion of spirit and
matter she was mistress of, whilst a general soft shudder ran
through all her limbs, which she gave a stretch out, and lay
motionless, breathless, dying with dear delight; and in the height
of its expression, showing, through the nearly closed lids of her
eyes, just the edges of their black, the rest being rolled strongly
upwards in their extasy; then her sweet mouth appeared
languish-ingly open, with the tip of her tongue leaning
negligently towards the lower range of her white teeth, whilst
natural ruby colour of her lips glowed with heightened life. Was
not this a subject to dwell upon? And accordingly her lover still
kept on her, with an abiding delectation, till compressed,
squeezed and distilled to the last drop, he took leave with one
fervent kiss, expressing satisfied desires, but unextinguished
love.
As soon as he was off, I ran to her, and sitting down on the
couch by her, rais'd her head, which she declined gently, and
hung on my bosom, to hide her blushes and confusion at what
had passed, till by degrees she re-composed herself, and
accepted of a restorative glass of wine from my spark, who had
left me to fetch it to her, whilst her own was readjusting his
affaire and buttoning up; after which he led her, leaning
languish-ingly upon him, to oar stand of view round the couch.
And now Emily's partner had taken her out for her share in
the dance, when this transcendently fair and sweet tempered
creature readily stood up; and if a com-extreme pretty features,
and that florid health and complexion to put the rose and lily
out of countenance, extreme pretty features, and that florid
health and bloom for which the country girls are so lovely, might
pass her for a beauty, this she certainly was, and one of the
most striking of the fair ones.
Her gallant began first, as she stood, to disengage, her breasts,
and restore them to the liberty of nature, from the easy
confinement of no more than a pair of jumps; but on their
coming out to view, we thought a new light was added to the
room, so superiourly shining was their whiteness; then they rose
in so happy a swell as to compose her a well horned fullness of
bosom, that had such an effect on the eye as to seem flash
hardened into marble, of which it emulated the polished gloss,
and far surpassed even the whitest, in the life and lustre of its
colours, white weined with blue. Who could refrain from such
provoking enticements in reach? he touched her breasts, first
lightly, when the glossy smoothness of the skin eluded his hand,
and made it slip along the surface; he pressed them, and the
springy flesh that filled them, thus pitted by force, rose again
reboundingly with his hand, and on the instant defaced the
pressure: and alike indeed was the consistence of all those parts
of her body throughout, where the fulness of flesh compacts and
constitutes all that fine firmness which the touch is so highly
attached to. When he had thus largely pleased himself with this
branch of dalliance and delight, he trussed up her petticoat and
shift, in a wisp to her waist, where being tucked in, she stood
fairly naked on every side; a blush at this overspread her lovely
face, and her eyes downcast to the ground, seemed to be for
quarter, when she had so great a right to triumph in all the
treasures of youth and beauty that she now so victoriously
displayed. Her legs were perfectly well shaped and her thighs,
which she kept pretty close, shewed so white, so round, so
substantial and abounding in firm flesh, that nothing could
afford a stronger recommendation to the luxury of the touch,
which he accordingly did not fail to indulge in. Then gently
removing her hand, which in the first emotion of natural
modesty, she had carried thither, he gave us rather a glimpse
than a view of that soft narrow chink running its little length
downwards, and hiding the remains of it between her thighs; but
plain was to be seen the fringe of light-brown curls, in beauteous
growth over it, that with their silk gloss created a pleasing
variety from the surrounding white, whose lustre too, their
gentle embrowning shade, considerably raised. Her spark then
endeavoured, as she stood, by disclosing her thighs, to gain us a
completer sight of that central charm of attraction, but not
obtaining it so conveniently in that attitude, he led her to the
foot of the couch, and bringing it to one of the pillows gently
inclined her head down, so that as she leaned with it over her
crossed hands, straddling with her thighs wide spread, and
jutting her body out, she presented a full back view of her
person, naked to her waist. Her posteriors, plump, smooth, and
prominent, formed luxuriant tracts of animated snow, that
splendidly filled the eye, till it was commanded down the parting
or separation of those exquisitely white cliffs, by their narrow
vale, and was there stopt, and attracted by the embowered
bottom-savity, that terminated this delightful vista and stood
moderately gaping from the influence of her bended posture, so
that the agreeable interior red of the sides of the orifice came
into view, and with respect to the white that dazzled round it,
gave somewhat the idea of a pink slash in the glossiest white
satin. Her gallant, who was a gentleman about thirty, somewhat
inclined to a fatness that was in no sort displeasing, improving
the hint thus tendered him of this mode of enjoyment, after
setting her well in this posture, and encouraging her with kisses
and caresses to stand him thro', drew out his affair ready
erected, and whose extreme length, rather disproportioned to its
breadth, was the more surprising, as that excess is not often the
case with those of his corpulent habit; making then the right and
direct application, he drove it up to the guard, whilst the round
bulge of those Turkish beauties of her's, tallying with the hollow
made with the bent of his belly and thighs, as he curved
inwards, brought all those parts, surely not un-delightfully, into
warm touch, and close conjunction; his hands he kept passing
round her body, and employed in toying with her enchanting
breasts. As soon too as she felt him at home as he could reach,
she lifted her head a little from the pillow, and turning her neck,
without much straining, but her cheeks glowing with the deepest
scarlet, and a smile of the tenderest satisfaction, met the kiss he
pressed forward to give her as they were thus close joined
together: when leaving him to pursue his delights, she hid again
her face and blushes with her hands and pillow, and thus stood
passively and as favourably too as she could, whilst he kept
laying at her with repeated thrusts and making the meeting flesh
on both sides resound again with the violence of them; then ever
as he backened from her, we could see between them part of his
long white staff foamingly in motion, till, as he went on again
and closed with her, the interposing hillocks took it out of sight.
Sometimes he took his hands from the semi-globes of her bosom,
and transferred the pressure of them to those large ones, the
present subjects of his soft blockade, which he squeezed,
grasped and played with, till at length in pursuit of driving, so
hotly urged, brought on the height of the fit, with such
overpowering pleasure, that his fair partner became now
necessary to support him, panting, fainting and dying as he
discharged; which she no sooner felt the killing sweetness of,
than unable to keep her legs, and yielding to the mighty
intoxication, she reeld, and falling forward on the couch, made it
a necessity for him, if he would preserve the warm-pleasure
hold, to fall upon her, where they perfected, in a continued
conjunction of body and extatic flow, their scheme of joys for
that time.
As soon as he had disengaged, the charming Emily got up, and
we crowded round her with congratulations and other officious
little services; for it is to be noted, that though all modesty and
reserve were banished from the transaction of these pleasures,
good manners and politeness were inviolably observed: there
was no gross ribaldry, no offensive or rude behaviour, or
ungenerous reproaches to the girls for their compliance With the
humours and desires of the men. On the contrary, nothing was
wanting to soothe, encourage, and soften the sense of their
condition to them. Men know not in general how much they
destroy of their own pleasure, when they break through the
respect and tenderness due to our sex, and even to those of it
who live only by pleasing them. And this was a maxim perfectly
well understood by these polite voluptuaries, these profound
adepts in the great art and science of pleasure, who never
shewed these votaries of theirs a more tender respect than at the
time of those exercises of their complaisance, when they
unlocked their treasures of concealed beauty, and shewed out in
the pride of their native charms, ever more touching surely than
when they parade it in the artificial ones of dress and ornament.
The frolic was now come round to me, and it being my turn of
subscription to the will and pleasure of my particular elect, as
well as to that of the company, he came to me, and saluting me
very tenderly, with a flattering eagerness, put me in mind of the
compliances my presence there authorized the hopes of, and at
the same time repeated to me, "that if all this force of example
had not surmounted any repugnance I might have to concur with
the humours and desires of the company, that though the play
was bespoke for my benefit, and great as his own private
disappointment might be, he would suffer any thing, sooner than
be the instrument of imposing a disagreeable task."
To this I answered, without the least hesitation, or mincing
grimace, "that had I not even contracted a kind of engagement to
be at his disposal without the least reserve, the example of such
agreeable companions would alone determine me, and that I was
in no pain about any thing but my appearing to so great a
disadvantage after such superior beauties." And take notice that
I thought, as I spoke. The frankness of the answer pleased them
all; my particular was complimented on his acquisition, and, by
way of indirect flattery to me, openly envied me.
Mrs. Cole, by the way, could not have given me a greater
mark of her regard than in managing for me the choice of this
young gentleman for my master of the ceremonies: for,
independent of his noble birth and the great fortune he was heir
to, his person was even uncommonly pleasing, well shaped and
tall; his face marked with the small-pox, but no more than what
added a grace of more manliness to features rather turned to
softness and delicacy, was marvellously enlivened by eyes which
were of the clearest sparkling black; in short he was one whom
any woman would, in the familiar style, ready call a very pretty
fellow.
I was now handed by him to the cockpit of our match, where,
as I was dressed in nothing but a white morning gown, he
vouchsafed to play the male Abigail on this occasion, and spared
me the confusion that would have attended the forwardness of
undressing myself: my gown then was loosen'd in a trice, and I
divested of it; my stays next offered an obstacle which readily
gave way, Louisa very readily furnished a pair of scissors to cut
the lace; off went that shell and dropping my uppercoat, I was
reduced to my under one and my shift, the open bosom of which
gave the hands and eyes all the liberty they could wish. Here I
imagined the stripping was to stop, but I reckon short; my
spark, at the desire of the rest, tenderly begged, that I would not
suffer the small remains of a covering to rob them of a full view
of my whole person; and for me, who was too flexibly
obsequious to dispute any point with them, and who considered
the little more that remained as very immaterial, I readily
assented to whatever he pleased-In an instant, then, my under
petticoat was untied and at my feet, and my shift drawn over my
head, so that my cap, slightly fastened, came off with it, and
brought all my hair down (of which, be it again remembered
without vanity, that I had a very fine head) in loose disorderly
ringlets, over my neck and shoulders, to the no unfavourable set-
off of my skin.
I now stood before my judges in all the truth of nature, to
whom I could not appear a very disagreeable figure, if you
please to recollect what I have beforesaid of my person, which
time, that at certain periods of life robs use every instant of our
charms, had, at that of mine, then greatly improved into full and
open, bloom, for I wanted some months of eighteen. My breasts,
which in the state of nudity are ever capital points, now in no
more than in graceful plenitude, maintained a firmness and
steady independence of any stay or support, that dared and
invited the test of the touch. Then I was as tall, as slim-shaped
as could be consistent with all that juicy plumpness of flesh,
ever the most grateful to the senses of sight and touch, which I
owed to the health and youth of my constitution. I had not,
however, so thoroughly renounced all innate shame, as not to
suffer great confusion at the state I saw myself in; but the whole
troop round me, men and women, relieved me with every mark
of applause and satisfaction, even flattering attention to raise
and inspire me with even sentiments of pride on the figure I
made, which my friend gallantly protested, infinitely outshone
all other birthday finery whatever; so that had I leave to set
down, for sincere, all the compliments these connoisseurs
overwhelmed me with upon this occasion, I might flatter myself
with having passed my examination with the approbation of the
learned.
My friend, however, who for this time had alone the disposal
of me, humoured their curiosity, and perhaps his own, so far,
that he placed me in all the variety of postures and lights
imaginable, pointing out every beauty under every aspect of it,
not without such parentheses, of kisses, such inflammatory
liberties of his roving hands, as made all shame fly before them,
and a blushing glow give place to a warmer one of desire, which
led me even to find some relish in the present scene.
But in this general survey, you may be sure, the most material
spot of me was not excused the strictest visitation; nor was it
but agreed, that I had not the least reason to be diffident of
passing even for a maid, on occasion; so inconsiderable a flaw
had my preceding adventures created there, and so soon had the
blemish of an over-stretch been repaired and worn out at any
age, and in my naturally small make in that part.
Now, whether my partner had exhausted all the modes of
regaling the touch or sight, or whether he was now ungovernably
wound up to strike, I know not; but briskly throwing off his
clothes, the prodigious heat bred by a close room, a great fire,
numerous candles, and even the inflammatory warmth of these
scenes, induced him to lay aside his shirt too, when his
breeches, before loosened, now gave up their contents to view,
and shew'd in front the enemy I had to engage with, stiffly
bearing up the port of its head imhooded, and glowing red. Then
I plainly saw what I had to trust to: it was one of those just true-
sized instruments, of which the masters have a better command
than the more unwieldy, inordinate sized one are generally
under. Straining me then close to his bosom, as he stood up
foreright against me, and applying to the obvious niche its
peculiar idol, he aimed at inserting it, which, as I forwardly
favoured, he effected at once, by canting up my thighs over his
naked hips, and made me receive every inch, and close home;
so-that stuck upon the pleasure-pivot, add clinging round his
neck, in which and in his hair I hid my face, burn-ingly flushing
with present feeling as much as with shame, my bosom glued to
him; he carried me once round the couch, on which he then,
without quitting the middle-fastness, or dischannelling, laid me
down, and began with pleasure-grist. But so provokingly
predisposed and primed as we were, by all the moving sights of
the night, our imagination was too much heated not to melt us
of the soonest; and accordingly I no sooner felt the warm spray
darted up my inwards-, from him, but I was punctually on flow,
to share the momentary extasy; but I had yet greater reason to
boast of our harmony: for finding that all the flames of desire
were not yet quenched within me, but that rather, like wetted
coals, I glowed the fiercer for this sprinkling, my hot-mettled
spark, sympathizing with me, and loaded for a double fire,
recontinued the sweet battery with undying vigour; greatly
encouraged to accommodate all my motions to his best
advantage and delight; kisses, squeezes, tender murmurs, all
came into play, till our joys growing more turbulent and riotous,
threw us into a fond disorder, and as they raged to a point, bore
us far from our selves into an ocean of boundless pleasures, into
which we both plunged together in a transport of taste. Now all
the impressions of burning desire, from the lively scenes I had
been spectatress of, ripened the heat of this exercise, and
collecting to a head, throbbed and agitated me with
insupportable irritations: I perfectly fevered and maddened with
their excess. I bid not now enjoy a calm of reason enough to
perceive, but I extatically, indeed, felt the power of such rare
and exquisite provocatives, as the examples of the night had
proved towards thus exalting our pleasures: which, with great
joy. I sensibly found my gallant shared in, by his nervous and
home expressions of it: his eyes flashing eloquent flames, his
action infuriated with the stings of it, all conspiring to raise my
delight, by assuring me of his. Lifted then to the utmost pitch of
joy that human life can bear, undestroyed by excess, I touched
that sweetly critical point, whence scarce prevented by the
injection from my partner, I dissolved, and breaking out into a
deep drawn sigh, sent my whole sensitive soul down to that
passage where escape was denied it, by its being so deliciously
plugged and choked up. Thus we lay a few blissful instants,
overpowered, still, and languid; till, as the sense of pleasure
stagnated, we recovered from our trance, and he slipt out of me,
not however before he had protested his extreme satisfaction by
the tenderest kiss and embrace, as well as by the most cordial
expressions.
 The company, who had stood round us in a profound silence,
when all was over, helped me to hurry on my clothes in an
instant, and complimented me on the sincere homage they could
not escape observing had been done as they termed it—to the
sovereignty of my charms, in my receiving a double payment of
tribute at one juncture. But my partner, now dressed again,
signalized, above all, a fondness unbated by the circumstance of
recent enjoyment; the girls too kissed and embraced me,
assuring me that for that time, or indeed any other, unless I
pleased, I was to go through no farther public trials, and that I
was now consummatedly initiated, and one of them.
As it was an inviolable law for every gallant to keep to his
partner, for the night especially, and even till he relinquished
possession over to the community, in order to preserve a
pleasing property, and to avoid the disgusts and indelicacy of
another arrangement, the company, after a short refection of
biscuits and wine, tea and chocolate, served in at now about one
in the morning, broke up, and went off in pairs. Mrs. Cole had
prepared my spark and me an occasion field-bed, to which we
retired, and there ended the night in one continued strain of
pleasure, sprightly and uncloyed enough for us not to have
formed one wish for its ever knowing an end. In the morning,
after a restorative breakfast in bed, he got up, and with very
tender assurance of a particular regard for me, left me to the
composure and refreshment of a sweet slumber; waking out of
which, and getting up to dress before Mrs. Cole should come in,
I found in one of my pockets a purse of guineas, which he had
slipt there; and just as I was musing on a liberality I had
certainly not expected, Mrs. Cole came in, to whom I
immediately communicated the present, and naturally offered
her whatever share she pleased: but assuring me that the
gentleman had very nobly rewarded her, she would on no terms,
no entreaties, no shape I could put it in, receive any part of it.
Her denial, she observed, was no affectation of grimace, and
proceeded to read me such admirable lessons on the economy of
my person and my purse, as I became amply paid for my general
attention and conformity to in the course of my acquaintance
with the town. After which, changing the discourse, she fell on
the pleasures of the preceding night, where I learned, without
much surprise, as I began to enter on her character, that she had
seen every thing that had passed, from a convenient place
managed solely for that purpose, and of which she readily made
me the confidante.
She had scarce finished this, when the little troop of love girls,
my companions, broke in, and renewed their compliments and
caresses.. I observed with pleasure, that the fatigues and
exercises of the night had not usurped in the least on the life of
their complexion, or the freshness of their bloom: this I found,
by their confession, was owing to the management and advice of
our rare directress. They went down then to figure it, as usual,
in the shop; whilst I repaired to my lodging, where I employed
myself till I returned to dinner at Mrs. Cole's.
Here I staid in constant amusement, with one or other of these
charming girls, till about five in the evening; when seized with a
sudden drowsy fit, I was prevailed on to go up and doze it off on
Harriet's bed, who left me on it to my repose. There then I laid
down in my clothes, and fell fast asleep, and had now enjoyed,
by guess, about an hour's rest, when I was pleasingly disturbed
by my new and favourite gallant, who, enquiring for me, was
readily directed where to find me. Coming then into my
chamber, and seeing me lie alone, with my face turned from the
light towards the inside of the bed, he, without more ado, just
slipped off his breeches, for the greater ease and enjoyment of
the naked touch; and softly turning up my petticoats and shift
behind, opened the prospect of the back avenue to the genial
seat of pleasure; where, as I lay at my side length, inclining
rather face downward, I appeared full fair, and liable to be
entered. Laying himself gently down by me, he invested me
behind, and giving me to feel the warmth of his body, as he
applied his thighs and belly close to me, and the endeavours of
that machine, whose touch has something so exquisitely singular
in it, to make its way good into me. I awaked pretty much
startled at first, at seeing who it was, disposed myself to turn to
him, when he gave me a kiss, and desiring me to keep my
posture, just lifted up my upper thigh, and ascertaining the right
opening, soon drove it up to the farthest: satisfied with which,
and solacing himself with lying so close in those parts, he
suspended motion, and thus steeped in pleasure, kept me lying
on my side, into him, spoon-fashion, as he termed it, from the
snug indent of the back part of my thighs, and all upwards, into
the space of the bending between his thighs and belly; till, after
some time, that restless and turbulent inmate, impatient by
nature of longer quiet, urged him to action, which now
prosecuting with all the usual train of toying, kissing, and the
like, ended at length in the liquid proof on both sides, that we
had not exhausted, or at less were quickly recruited of last
night's draughts of pleasure in us.
With this noble and agreeable youth lived I in perfect joy and
constancy. He was full bent on keeping me to himself, for the
honey-month at least; but his stay in London was not even so
long, his father, who had a post in Ireland, taking him abruptly
with him, on his repairing thither. Yet even then I was near
keeping hold of his affection and person, as he had proposed,
and I had consented to follow him in order to go to Ireland after
him, as soon as he could be settled there; but meeting with an
agreeable and advantageous match in that kingdom, he chose the
wiser part, and forebore sending for me, but at the same time
took care that I should receive a very magnificent present, which
did not however compensate for all my deep regret on my loss of
him.
This event also created a chasm in our little society, which
Mrs. Cole, on the foot of her usual caution, was in no haste to
fill up; but then it redoubled her attention to procure me, in the
advantages of a traffic for a counterfeit maidenhead, some
consolation for the sort of widowhood I had been left in; and
this was a scheme she had never lost prospect of, and only
waited for a proper person to bring it to bear with.
But I was, it seems, fated to be my own caterer in this, as I
had been in my first trial of the market.
 I had now passed near a month in the enjoyment of all the
pleasures of familiarity and society with my companions, whose
particular favourites (the baronet excepted, who soon after took
Harriet home) had all, on the terms of community established in
the house, solicited the gratification of their taste for variety in
my embraces; but I had with the utmost art and address, on
various pretexts, eluded their pursuit, without giving them cause
to complain; and this reserve I used neither out of dislike of
them, nor disgust of the thing, but my true reason was my
attachment to my own, and my tenderness of invading the
choice of my companions, who outwardly exempt, as they
seemed, from jealousy, could not but in secret like me the better
for the regard I had for, without making a merit of it to them.
Thus easy, and beloved by the whole family, did I get on; when
one day, that, about five in the afternoon, I stepped over to a
fruit shop in Covent Garden, to pick some table fruit for myself
and the young women, I met with the following adventure.
Whilst I was chaffering for the fruit I wanted, I observed
myself followed by a young gentleman, whose rich dress first
attracted my notice; for the rest, he had nothing remarkable in
his person, except that he was pale, thin-made, and ventured
himself upon legs rather of the slenderest. Easy was it to
perceive, without seeming to perceive it, that it was me he
wanted to be at; and keeping his eyes fixed on me, till he came
to the same basket that I stood at, and cheapening, or rather
giving the first price asked for the fruit, began his approaches.
Now most certainly I was not at all out of figure to pass for a
modest girl. I had neither the feathers, nor fumet of a taudry
town-miss: a straw hat, a white gown, clean linen, and above all,
a certain natural and easy air of modesty (which the appearances
of never forsook me, even on those occasions that I most brouke
in upon it, in practice) were all signs that gave him no opening
to conjecture my condition. He spoke to me; and this address
from a stranger throwing a blush into my cheeks, that still set
him wider of the truth, I answered him, with an awkwardness
and confusion the more apt to impose, as there really was a
mixture of the genuine in them. But when proceeding, on the
foot of having broken the ice, to join discourse, he went into
other leading questions, I put so much innocence, simplicity,
and even childishness, into my answers, that on no better
foundation, liking my person as he did, I will not answer for it,
he would have been sworn for my modesty. There is, in short, in
the men, when once they are caught, by the eye especially, a
fund of cullibility that their lordly wisdom little dreams of, and
in virtue of which the most sagacious of them are seen so often
our dupes. Amongst other queries he put to me, one was,
whether I was married? I replied, that I was too young to think
of that this many a year. To that of my age, I answered, and
sunk a year upon him, passing myself for not above seventeen.
As to my way of life, I told him I had served an apprenticeship
to a milliner in Preston, and was come to town after a relation,
that I had found, on my arrival, was dead, and now lived
journey-woman to a milliner in town. That last article, indeed,
was not much of the side of what I pretended to pass for; but it
did pass, under favour of the growing passion I had inspired him
with. After he had next got out of me, very dexterously as he
thought, what I had no sort of design to make reserve of, my
own, my mistress's name, and place of abode, he loaded me with
fruit, all the rarest and dearest he could pick out and sent me
home, pondering on what might be the consequence of this
adventure.
As soon then as I came to Mrs. Cole's, I related to her all that
passed, on which she very judiciously concluded, that if he did
not come after me there was no harm done, and that, if he did,
as her presage suggested to her he would, his character and his
views should be well sifted, so as to know whether the game was
worth the springes; that in the mean time nothing was easier
than my part in it, since no more rested on me than to follow
her cue and promptership throughout, till the last act.
The next morning, after an evening spent on his side, as we
afterwards learnt, in perquisitions into Mrs. Cole's character in
the neighbourhood (than which nothing could be more
favourable to her designs upon him), my gentleman came in his
chariot to the shop, where Mrs. Cole alone had an inkling of his
errand. Asking then for her, he easily made a beginning of
acquaintance by bespeaking some millinery ware; when, as I sat
without lifting my eyes, and pursuing the hem of a ruffle with
the utmost composure and simplicity of industry, Mrs. Cole took
notice, that the first impressions I made on him ran no risk of
being destroyed by those of Louisa and Emily, who were then
sitting at work by me. After vainly endeavouring to catch my
eyes in rencounter with him (I held my head down, affecting a
kind of consciousness of guilt for having, by speaking to him
given him encouragement and means of following me), and after
giving Mrs. Cole direction when to bring the things home
herself, and the time he should expect them, he went out, taking
with him some goods, that he paid for liberally, for the better
grace of his introduction.
The girls all this time did not in the least smoak the mystery
of this new customer; but Mrs. Cole, as soon as we were
conveniently alone, insured me, in virtue of her long experience
in these matters, "that for this bout my charms had not missed
fire; for by his eagerness, his manner and looks, she was sure he
had it: the only point now in doubt was his character and
circumstances, which her knowledge of the town would soon
gain her the sufficient acquaintance with, to take measure upon."
And effectively, in a few hours, her intelligence served her so
well, that she learned that this conquest of mine was no other
than Mr. Norbert, a gentleman originally of great fortune, which,
with a constitution naturally not the best, he had vastly
impaired by his over-violent pursuit of the vices of the town; in
the course of which, having worn out and staled all the more
common modes of debauchery, he had fallen into a taste of
maiden-hunting; in which chase he had ruined a number of girls,
sparing no expense to compass his ends, and generally using
them well till tired, or cooled by enjoying, or springing a new
face, he could with more ease disembarrass himself of the old
ones, and resign them to their fate, as his sphere of
achievements of that sort lay only amongst such as he could
proceed with by way of bargain and sale.
 Concluding from these premises, Mrs. Cole observed, that a
character of this sort was ever a lawful prize; that the sin would
be, not to make the best of our market of him; and that she
thought such a girl as I only too good for him at any rate, and on
any terms.
She went then, at the hour appointed, to his lodgings in one of
our inns of court, which were furnished in a taste of grandeur
that had a special eye to all the conveniences of luxury and
pleasure. Here she found him in ready waiting; and after
finishing her business of pretence, and a long conduit of
discussions concerning her trade, which she said was very bad,
the qualities of her servants, apprentices, journey-women, the
discourse naturally landed at length on me, when Mrs. Cole,
acting admirably the good old prating gossip, who lets every
thing escape her when her tongue is set in motion, cooked him
up a story so plausible of me, throwing in every now and then
such strokes of art, with all the simplest air of nature, in praise
of my person and temper, as finished him finely for her purpose,
whilst nothing could be better counterfeited than her innocence
of his. But when now fired and on edge, he proceeded to drop
hints of his design and views upon me, after he had with much
confusion and pains brought her to the point (she kept as long
aloof from it as she thought proper) of understanding him,
without now affecting to pass for a dragoness of virtue, by flying
out into those violent and ever suspicious passions, she stuck
with the better grace and effect to the character of a plain, good
sort of woman, that knew no harm, and that getting her bread in
an honest way, was made of stuff easy and flexible enough to be
wrought to his ends, by his superior skill and address; but,
however, she managed so artfully that three or four meetings
took place, before he could obtain the least favourable hope of
her assistance; without which, he had, by a number of fruitless
messages, letters, and other direct trials of my disposition,
convinced himself there was no coming at me, all which too
raised at once my character and price with him.
Regardful, however, of not carrying these difficulties to such a
length as might afford time for starting discoveries, or incidents,
unfavourable to her plan, she at last pretended to be won over
by mere dint of entreaties, promises, and, above all, by the
dazzling sum she took care to wind him up to the specification
of, when it was now even a piece of art to feign, at once, a
yielding to the allurements of a great interest, as a pretext for
her yielding at all, and the manner of it such as might persuade
him she had never dipped her virtuous fingers in an affair of
that sort.
Thus she led him through all the gradations of difficulty, and
obstacles, necessary to enhance the value of the prize he aimed
at; and in conclusion, he was so struck with the little beauty I
was mistress of, and so eagerly bent on gaining his ends of me,
that he left her no room to boast of her management in bringing
him up to her mark, he drove so plump of himself into every
thing tending to make him swallow the bait. Not but, in other
respects, Mr. Norbert was not clear sighted enough, or that he
did not perfectly know the town, and even by experience, the
very branch of imposition now in practice upon him: but we had
his passion our friend so much, he was so blinded and hurried
on by it, that he would have thought any undeception a very ill
office done to his pleasure. Thus concurring, even precipitately,
to the point she wanted him at, Mrs. Cole brought him at last to
hug himself on the cheap bargain he considered the purchase of
my imaginary jewel was to him, at no more than three hundred
guineas to myself, and a hundred to the brokers: being a slender
recompense for all her pains, and all the scruples of conscience
she had now sacrificed to him for this first time of her life;
which sums were to be paid down on the nail, upon delivery of
my person, exclusive of some no inconsiderable presents that
had been made in the course of the negociation: during which I
had occasionally, but sparingly been introduced into his
company, at proper times and hours; in which it is incredible
how little it seemed necessary to strain my natural disposition to
modesty higher, in order to pass it upon him for that a very
maid: all my looks and gestures ever breathing nothing but that
innocence which the men so ardently require in us, for no other
end than to feast themselves with the pleasure of destroying it,
and which they are so grievously, with all their skill, subject to
mistakes in.
When the articles of the treaty had been fully agreed on, the
stipulated payments duly secured, and nothing now remained
but the execution of the main point, which centered in the
surrender of my person up to his free disposal and use, Mrs.
Cole managed her objections, especially to his lodgings, and
insinuations so nicely, that it became his own mere notion and
urgent request, that this copy of a wedding should be finished at
her house: "At first, indeed, she did not care, not she, to have
such doings in it... she would not for a thousand pounds have
any of the servants or apprentices know it... her precious good
name would be gone for ever...," with the like excuses. However,
on superior objections to all other expedients, whilst she took
care to start none but those which were most liable to them it
came round at last to the necessity of her obliging' him in that
conveniency, and of doing a little more where she had already
done so much.
The night then was fixed, with all possible respect to the
eagerness of his impatience, and in the mean time Mrs. Cole had
omitted no instructions, nor even neglected any preparation,
that might enable me to come off with honour, in regard to the
appearance of my virginity, except that, favoured as I was by
nature with all the narrowness of stricture in that part requisite
to conduct my designs, I had no occasion to borrow those
auxiliaries of art that create a momentary one, easily discovered
by the test of a warm bath; and as to the usual sanguinary
symptoms of defloration, which, if not always, are generally
attendants on it, Mrs. Cole had made me the mistress of an
invention of her own, which could hardly miss its effect, and of
which more in its place.
Every thing then being disposed and fixed for Mr. Norbert's
reception, he was, at the hour of eleven at night, with all the
mysteries of silence and secrecy, let in by Mrs. Cole herself, and
introduced into her bedchamber, where, in an old-fashioned bed
of her's, I lay, fully undressed, and panting, if not with the fears
of a real maid, at least with those perhaps greater of a
dissembled one which gave me an air of confusion and
bashfulness that maiden-modesty had all the honour of, and was
indeed scarce distinguishable from it, even by less partial eyes
than those of my lover: so let me call him, for I ever thought the
term "cully" too cruel a reproach to the men, for their abused
weakness for us.
As soon as Mrs. Cole, after the old gossipery, on these
occasions, used to young women abandoned for the first time to
the will of man, had left us alone in her room, which, by the bye
was well lighted up, at his previous desire, that seemed to bode
a stricter examination than he afterwards made, Mr. Norbert,
still dressed, sprung towards the bed, where I got my head
under the clothes, and defended them a good while before he
could even get at my lips, to kiss them: so true it is, that a false
virtue, on this occasion, even makes & greater rout and
resistance than a true one. From thence he descended to my
breasts, the feel I disputed tooth and nail with him till tired with
my resistance, and thinking probable to give a better account to
me, he hurried his clothes off in an instant, and came into bed.
Mean while by the glimpse I stole of him, I could easily
discover a person far from promising any such doughty
performances as the storming of maidenheads generally requires,
and whose flimsy consumptive texture gave him more the air of
an invalid that was pressed, than of a volunteer, on such hot
service.
At scarce thirty he had already reduced his strength of
appetite down to a wretched dependance on forced provocatives,
very little seconded by the natural power of a body jaded, and
racked off to the less by constant repeated over draughts of
pleasure, which had done the work of sixty winters on his
springs of live: leaving him at the same time all the fire and head
of youth in his imagination, which served at once to torment and
spur him down the precipice.
As soon as he was in bed, he threw off the bedclothes, which I
suffered him to force from my hold, and I now lay as exposed as
he could wish, not only to his attacks, but his visitation of the
sheets; where in the various agitations of the body, through my
endeavours to defend myself, he could easily assure himself
there was no preparation, though, to do him justice, he seemed a
less strict examinant than I had apprehended from so
experienced a practitioner. My shift then he fairly tore open,
finding I made too much use of it to barricade my breasts, as
well as the more important avenue: yet in every thing else he
proceeded with all the marks of tenderness and regard to me,
whilst the art of my play was to shew none for him, I acted them
all the niceties, apprehensions, and terrors, supposable for a girl
perfectly innocent to feel, at so great a novelty as a naked man
in bed with her for the first time. He scarce even obtained a kiss
but what he ravished; I put his hand away twenty times from my
breasts, where he had satisfied himself of their hardness and
consistence, with passing for hitherto unhandled goods. But
when grown impatient upon the main point, he now threw
himself upon me, and first trying to examine me with his finger,
sought to make himself further way, I complained of his usage
bitterly: "I thought he would not have served a body so... I was
ruined... I did not know what I had done..., I would get up, so I
would...;" and at the same time kept my thighs so fast locked,
that it was not for strength like his to force them open, or do
any good. Finding thus my advantages, and that I had both my
own and his motions at command, the deceiving him came so
easy, that it was perfectly playing upon velvet. In the mean time
his machine, which was one of those sizes that slip in and out
without being minded, kept pretty stiffly bearing against that
part, which the shutting my thighs barred access to; but finding,
at length he could do no good by mere dint of bodily strength,
he resorted to entreaties and arguments: to which I only
answered, with a tone of shame and timidity, "that I was afraid
he would kill me... Lord!..., would not be served so... I was
never so used in all my born days..., I wondered he was not
ashamed of himself, so I did...," with such silly infantine moods
of repulse and complaint as I judged best adapted to express the
character of innocence, and affright. Pretending, however, to
yield at length to the vehemence of his insistence, in action and
words, I sparing disclosed my thighs, so that he could just touch
the cloven inlet with the tip of his instrument: but as he fatigued
and toiled to get in, a twist of my body, so as to receive it
obliquely, not only thwarted his admission, but giving a scream,
as if he had pierced me to the heart, I shook him off me, with
such violence that he could not with all his might to it, keep the
saddle: vexed indeed at this he seemed, but not in the style of
displeasure with me for my skittishness; on the contrary, I dare
swear he held me the dearer, and hugged himself for the
difficulties that even hurt his instant pleasure. Fired, however,
now beyond all bearance of delay, he remounts, and begged of
me to have patience, stroking and soothing me to it by all the
tenderest endearments and protestations of what he would
moreover do for me; at which, feigning to be somewhat
softened, and abating of the anger that I had shewn at his
hurting me so prodigiously, I suffered him to lay my thighs
aside, and make way for a new trial; but I watched the
directions and management of his point so well, that no sooner
was the orifice in the least open to it, but I gave such a timely
jerk as seemed to proceed not from the evasion of his entry, but
from the pain his efforts at it put me to: a circumstance too that
I did not fail to accompany with proper gestures, sighs and cries
of complaint, of which, "that he had hurt me... he killed me... I
should die...," were the most frequent interjections. But now,
after repeated attempts, in which he had not made the least
impression towards gaining his point, at least for that time, the
pleasure rose so fast upon him, that he could not check or delay
it, and in the vigour and fury which the approaches of the height
of it inspired him, he made one fierce-thrust, that had almost
put me by my guard, and lodged it so far that I could feel the
warm inspersion just within the exterior orifice, which I had the
cruelty not to let him finish there, but threw him out again, not
without a most piercing loud exclamation, as if the pain had put
me beyond all regard of being overheard. It was then easy to
observe that he was more satisfied, more highly pleased with the
supposed motives of his baulk of consummation, than he would
have-been at the full attainment of it. It was on this foot that I
solved to myself all the falsity I employed to procure him that
blissful pleasure in it, which most certainly he would not have
tasted in the truth of things. Eased, however, and relieved by
one discharge, he now applied himself to sooth, encourage, and
to put me into humour and patience to bear his next attempt,
which he began to prepare and gather force for, from all the
incentives of the touch and sight which he could think of, by
examining every individual part of my whole body, which he
declared his satisfaction with, in raptures of applause, kisses
universally imprinted, and sparing no part of me, in all the
eagerest wantonness of feeling, seeing, and toying. His vigour,
however, did not return so soon, and I felt him more than once
pushing at the door, but so little in a condition to break in, that
I question whether he had the power to enter, had I held it ever
so open; but this he then thought me too little acquainted with
the nature of things, to have any regret or confusion about, and
he-kept fatiguing himself and me for a long time, before he was
in any state to resume his attacks with any prospect of success
and then I breathed him so warmly, and kept him so at bay, that
before he had made any sensible progress in point of
penetration, he was deliciously sweated, and wearied out
indeed: so that it was deep in the morning before he achieved
his second let-go, about half way of entrance, I all the while
crying and complaining of his prodigious vigour, and the
immensity of what I appeared to suffer splitting up with. Tired,
however, at length, with such athletic drudgery, my champion
began now to give out, and to gladly embrace the refreshment of
some rest. Kissing me then with much affection, and
recommending me to my repose, he presently fell fast asleep,
which, as soon as I had well satisfied myself of, I with much
composure of body, so as not to wake him by any motion, with
much ease and safety too, played of Mrs. Cole's device for
perfecting the signs of my virginity. In each of the head bed-
posts, just above where the bedsteads are inserted into them,
there was a small drawer, so artfully adapted to the mouldings
of the timber-work, that it might have escaped even the most
curious search: which drawers were easily opened or shut by the
touch of a spring, and were fitted each with a shallow glass
tumbler, full of a prepared fluid blood, in which lay soaked, for
ready use, a sponge, that required no more than gently reaching
the hand to it, taking it out and properly squeezing between the
thighs, when it yelded a great deal more of the red liquid than
would save a girl's honour; after which, replacing it, and
touching the spring, all possibility of discovery, or even of
suspicion, was taken away; and this was not the work of the
fourth part of a minute, and of which ever side one lay, the
thing was equally easy and practicable, by the double care taken
to have each bed-post provided alike. True it is, that had he
waked and caught me in the act, it would at least have covered
me with shame and confusion; but them, that he did not, was,
with the precautions I took, a risk of a thousand to one in my
favour.
At ease now, and out of all fear of any doubt or suspicion on
his side, I addressed myself in good earnest to my repose, but
could obtain none; and in about half an hour's time my
gentleman waked again, and turning towards me, I feigned a
sound sleep, which he did not long respect; but girding himself
again to renew the onset, he began to kiss and caress me, when
now making as if I just waked, I complained of the disturbance,
and of the cruel pain that this little rest had stole my senses
from. Eager, however, for the pleasure, as well of consummating
an entire triumph over my virginity, he said every thing that
could overcome my resistance, and bribe my patience to the end,
which now I was ready to listen to, from being secure of the
bloody proofs I had prepared of his victorious violence, though I
still thought it good policy not to let him in yet a while. I
answered then only to his importunities in sighs and moans,
"that I was so hurt, I could not bear it... I was sure he had done
me a mischief; that he had... he was such a bad man!" At this,
turning down the clothes, and viewing the field of battle by the
glimmer of a dying taper, he saw plainly my thighs, shift, and
sheet, all stained with what he readily took for a virgin effusion,
proceeding from his last half penetration: convinced, and
transported at which, nothing could equal his joy and exultation.
The illusion was complete, no other conception entered his head,
but that of his having been at work upon an unopened mine;
which idea, upon so strong an evidence, redoubled at once his
tenderness for me, and his ardour for breaking it wholly up.
Kissing me then with the utmost rapture, he comforted me, and
begged my pardon for the pain he had put me to: observing
withal, that it was only a thing in course; but the worst was
certainly past, and that with a little courage and constancy, I
should get it once well over, and never after experience any
thing but the greatest pleasure. By little and little I suffered
myself to be prevailed on, and giving, as it were, up to the point
of him, I made my thighs, insensibly spreading them, yield him
liberty of access, which improving, he got a little within me,
when by a well managed reception I worked the female screw so
nicely, that I kept him from the easy mid-channel direction, and
by dexterous wreathing and contortions, creating an artificial
difficulty of entrance, made him win it inch by inch, with the
most laborious struggles, I all the while sorely complaining: till
at length, with might and main, winding his way in, he got it
completely home, and giving my virginity, as he thought, the
coup le grace, furnished me with the cue of setting up a terrible
outcry, whilst he, triumphant and like a cock clapping his wings
over his down-trod mistress, pursued his pleasure: which
presently rose, in virtue of this idea of a complete victory, to a
pitch that made me soon sensible of his melting period; whilst I
now lay acting the deep wounded, breathless, frightened,
undone, no longer maid.
You would ask me, perhaps, whether all this time I enjoyed
any perception of pleasure? I assure you, little or none, till just
towards the latter end, a faintish sense of it came on
mechanically, from so long a struggle and frequent fret in that
ever sensible part; but, in the first place, I had no taste for the
person I was suffering the embraces of, on a pure mercenary
account; and then, I was not entirely delighted with myself for
the jade's part I was playing, whatever excuses I might plead for
my being brought into it; but then this insensibility kept me so
much the mistress of my mind and motions, that I could the
better manage so close a counterfeit, through the whole scene of
deception.
 Recovered at length to a more shew of life, by his tender
condolences, kisses and embraces, I upbraided him, and
reproached him with my ruin, in such natural terms, as added to
his satisfaction with himself, for having accomplished it; and
guessing, by certain observations of mine, that it would be
rather favourable to him, to spare him, when he some time after,
feebly enough, came on again to the assault, I resolutely
withstood any further endeavours, on a pretext that flattered his
prowess, of my being so violently hurt and sore, that I could not
possibly endure a fresh trial. He then graciously granted me a
respite, and the next morning soon after advancing, I got rid of
further importunity, till Mrs. Cole, being rung for by him, came
in and was made acquainted, in terms of the utmost joy and
rapture, with his triumphant certainty of my virtue, and the
finishing stroke he had given it, in the course of the night: of
which, he added, she would see proof enough in bloody
characters, on the sheets.
You may guess how a woman of her turn of address and
experience humoured the jest, and played him off with mixed
exclamations of shame, danger, compassion for me, and of her
being pleased that all was so well over: in which last, I believe,
she was certainly sincere. And now, as the objection which she
had represented as an invincible one, to me lying the first night
at his lodgings (which were studiously calculated for freedom of
intrigues), on the account of my maiden fears and terrors, at the
thought of going to a gentleman's chambers, and being alone
with him in bed, was surmounted, she pretended to persuade
me, in favour to him, that I should go there to him, whenever he
pleased, and still keep up all the necessary appearances of
working with her, that I might not lose, with my character, the
prospect of getting a good husband, and at the same time her
house would be kept safer from scandal. All this seemed so
reasonable, so considerate to Mr. Norbert, that he never once
perceived that she did not want him to resort to her house, lest
he might in time discover certain inconsistencies with the
character she had set out with to him: besides that this plan
greatly flattered his own ease, and views of liberty.
 Leaving me then to my much wanted rest, he got up, and Mrs.
Cole, after settling with him all points relating to me, got him
undiscovered out of the house. After which, as I was awake, she
came in, and gave me due praises for my success. Behaving too
with her usual moderation and disinterestedness, she refused
any share of the sum I had thus earned, and put me into such a
secure and easy way of disposing of my affairs, which now
amounted to a kind of little fortune, that a child of ten years old
might have kept the account and property of them safe in its
hands.
I was now restored again to my former state of a kept
mistress, and used punctually to wait on Mr. Norbert at his
chambers whenever he sent a messenger for me, which I
constantly took care to be in the way of, and managed with so
much caution, that he never once penetrated the nature of my
connections with Mrs. Cole; but indolently given up to ease and
the town dissipations, the perpetual hurry of them hindered him
from looking into his own affairs, much less to mine.
In the mean time, if I may judge from my own experience,
none are better paid, or better treated, during their reign, than
the mistress of those who, enervate by nature, debaucheries, or
age, have the least employment for the sex: sensible that a
woman must be satisfied some way, they ply her with a
thousand little tender attentions, presents, caresses, confidences,
and exhaust their inventions in means and devices to make up
for the capital deficiency; and even towards lessening that, what
arts, what modes, what refinements of pleasure have they not
recourse to, to raise their languid powers, and press nature into
the service of their sensuality? But here is their misfortune, that
when by a course of teasing, worrying, handling, wanton
postures, lascivious motions, they have at length accomplished a
flashy enervate enjoyment, they at the same time light up a
flame in the object of their passion, that, not having the means
themselves to quench, drives her for relief into the next person's
arms, who can finish their work; and thus they become bawds to
some favourite, tried and approved of, for a more vigorous and
satisfactory execution; for with women, of our turn especially,
however well our hearts may be disposed, there is a controlling
part, or queen-seat in us, that governs itself by its own maxims
of state, amongst which not one is stronger, in practice with it,
than, in the matter of is dues, never to accept the will for the
deed.
Mr. Norbert, who was much in this ungracious case, though
he professed to like me extremely, could but seldom
consummate the main-joy itself with me, without such a length
and variety of preparations, as were at once wearisome and
inflammatory.
Sometimes he would strip me stark naked on a carpet, by a
good fire, when he would contemplate me almost by the hour,
disposing me in all the figures and attitudes of body that it was
susceptible of being viewed in; kissing me in every part, the
most secret and critical one so far from excepted that it received
most of that branch of homage. Then his touches were so
exquisitely wanton, so luxuriously diffused and penetrative at
times, that he had made me perfectly rage with titillating fires,
when, after all, and much ado, he had gained a short-lived
erection, he would perhaps melt it away in a washy sweat, or a
premature abortive effusion, that provokingly mocked my eager
desires: or, if carried home, how faultered and unnervous the
execution! how insufficient the sprinkle of a few heat-drops to
extinguish all the flames he had kindled!
One evening, I cannot help remembering, that returning home
from him, with a spirit he had raised in a circle his wand had
proved too weak to lay, as I turned the corner of a street, I was
overtaken by a young sailor, I was then in that spruce, neat,
plain dress, which I ever affected and perhaps might have, in my
trip, a certain air of restlessness unknown to the composure of
cooler thoughts. However, he seized me as a prize, and without
farther ceremony threw his arms round my neck, and kissed me
boisterously and sweetly. I looked at him with a beginning of
anger and indignation at his rudeness, that softened away into
other sentiments as I viewed him: for he was tall, manly
carriaged, handsome of body and face, so that I ended my stare,
with asking him, in a tone turned to tenderness, what he meant;
at which, with the same frankness and vivacity as he had begun
with me, he proposed treating me with a glass of wine. Now,
certain it is, that had I been in a calmer state of blood than I
was, had I not been under the dominion of unappeased
irritation; but I do not know how it was, my pressing calls, his
figure, the occasion, and if you will, the powerful combination of
all these, with a start of curiosity to see the end of an adventure,
so novel too as being treated like a common street-plyer, made
me give a silent consent; in short, it was not my head that I now
obeyed, I suffered myself to be towed along as it were by this
man-of-war, who took me under his arm as familialry as if he
had known me all his lifetime, and led me into the next
convenient tavern, where we were shown into a little room on
one side of the passage. Here, scarce allowing himself patient till
the drawer brought in the wine called for, he fell directly on
board me: when, untucking my handkerchief, and giving me a
snatching buss, he laid my breasts bare at once, which he
handled with that keenness of gust that abridges a ceremonial
evermore tiresome than pleasing on such pressing occasions; and
now, hurrying towards the main point, we found no conveniency
to our purpose, two or three disabled chairs, and a rickety table,
composing the whole furniture of the room. Without more ado,
he plans me with my back standing against the wall, and my
petticoats up; and coming out with a splitter indeed, made it
shine, as he brandished it, in my eyes; and going to work with
an impetuosity and eagerness, bred very likely by a long fast at
seat, went to give me a taste of it. I straddled, I humoured my
posture, and did my best in short to buckle to it; I took part of it
in, but still things did not go to his thorough liking; changing
them in a trice his system of battery, he leads me to the table
and with a master-hand lays my head down on the edge of it,
and, with the other canting up my petticoats and shift, bares my
naked posteriors to his blind and furious guide; it forces its way
between them, and I feeling pretty sensibly that it was not going
by the right door, and knocking desperately at the wrong one, I
told him of it:—"Pooh!" says he, "my dear, any port in a storm."
Altering, however, directly his course, and lowering his point, he
fixed it right, and driving it up with a delicious stiffness, made
all foam again, and gave me the tout with such fire and spirit,
that in the fine disposition I was in when I submitted to him and
stirred up so fiercely as I was, I got the start of him, and went
away into the melting swoon, and squeezing him, whilst in the
convulsive grasp of it, drew from him such a plenteous bedewal,
as pointed to my own effusion, perfectly floated those parts, and
drowned in a deluge all my raging conflagration of desire.
When this was over, how to make my retreat was my concern;
for, though I had been so extremely pleased with the difficult
between this warm broadside, poured so briskly into me, and
the tiresome pawing and toying to which I had owed the
unappeased flames that had driven me into this step, now I was
cooler, I began to apprehend the danger of contracting an
acquaintance with this, however agreeable stranger; who, on his
side, spoke of passing the evening with me and continuing our
intimacy, with an air of determination that made me afraid of its
being not so easy to get away from him as I could wish. In the
mean time I carefully concealed my uneasiness, and readily
pretended to consent to stay with him, telling him I should only
step to my lodgings to leave a necessary direction, and then
instantly return. This he very glibly swallowed, on the notion of
my being one of those unhappy street-errants, who devote
themselves to the pleasure of the first ruffian that will stoop to
pick them up, and of course, that I would scarce bilk myself of
the hire, by not returning make the most of the job. Thus he
parted with me, not before, however, he had ordered in my
hearing a supper, which I had the barbarity to disappoint him of
my company too.
But when I got home, and told Mrs. Cole my adventure, she
represented so strongly to me the nature and dangerous
consequences of my folly, particularly the risks to my health, in
being so openlegged and free, that I not only took resolutions
never to venture so rashly again, which I inviolably preserved,
but passed a good many days in continual uneasiness, lest I
should have met with other reasons, besides the pleasure of that
rencounter, to remember it; but these fears wronged my pretty
sailor, for which I gladly make him this reparation.
I had now lived with Mr. Norbert near a quarter of a year, in
which space I circulated my time very pleasantly, between my
amusements at Mrs. Cole's, and a proper attendance on that
gentleman, who paid me profusely for the unlimited
complaisance with which I passively humoured every caprice of
pleasure, and which had won upon him so greatly, that finding,
as he said, all that variety in me alone, which he had sought for
in a number of women, I had made him lose his taste for
inconstancy, and new faces. But what was yet at least agreeable,
as well as more nattering, the love I had inspired him with, bred
a deference to me, that was of great service to his health: for
having by degrees, and with much pathetic representations
brought him to some husbandry of it, and to insure the duration
of his pleasures by moderating their use, and correcting those
excesses in them he was so addicted to, and which had shattered
his constitution and destroyed his powers of life in the very
point for which he seemed desirous to live, he was grown more
delicate, more temperate, and in course more healthy; his
gratitude for which was taking a turn very favourable for my
fortune, when once more the caprice of it dashed the cup from
my lips.
His sister, lady L..., for whom he had a great affection,
desiring him to accompany her down to Bath for her health, he
could not refuse her such a favour; and accordingly, though he
counted on staying away from me no more than a week at
farthest, he took his leave of me with an ominous heaviness of
heart, and left me a sum far above the state of his fortune, and
very inconsistent with the intended shortness of his journey; but
it ended in the longest that can be, and is never but once taken:
for, arrived at Bath, he was not there two days before he fell
into a debauch of drinking with some gentlemen, that threw him
into a high fever, and carried him off in four days' time, never
once out of a delirium. Had he been in his senses to make a will,
perhaps he might have made favourable mention of me in it.
Thus, however, I lost him; and as no condition of life is more
subject to revolutions than that of a woman of pleasure, I soon
recovered my cheerfulness, and now beheld myself once more
struck off the list of kept mistresses, and returned into the
bosom of the community, from which I had been in some
manner taken.
Mrs. Cole still continued her friendship, and offered me her
assistance and advice towards another choice; but I was now in
ease and affluence enough to look about me at leisure; and as to
any constitutional calls of pleasure, their pressure, or sensibility,
was greatly lessened by a consciousness of the east with which
they were to be satisfied at Mrs. Cole's house, where Louisa and
Emily still continued in the old way; and my great favourite
Harriet used often to come and see me, and entertain me, with
her head and heart full of the happiness she enjoyed with her
dear baronet, whom she loved with a tenderness and constancy,
even though he was her keeper, and what is yet more, had made
her independent, by a handsome provision for her and hers. I
was then in this vacancy from any regular employ of my person
in my way of business, when one day, Mrs. Cole, in the course
of the constant confidence we lived in, acquainted me that there
was one Mr. Barville, who used her house, just come to town,
whom she was not a little perplexed about providing a suitable
companion for; which was indeed a point of difficulty, as he was
under the tyranny of a cruel taste: that of an ardent desire, not
only of being unmercifully whipped himself, but of whipping
others, in such sort, that though he paid extravagantly those
who had the courage and complaisance to submit to his humour,
there were few, delicate as he was in the choice of his subjects,
who would exchange turns with him so terribly at the expense of
their skin. But, what yet increased the oddity of this strange
fancy was the gentleman being young; whereas it generally
attacks, it seems, such as are, through age, obliged to have
recourse to this experiment, for quickening the circulation of
their sluggish juices, and determining a conflux of the spirits of
pleasure towards those flagging shrivelly parts, that rise to life
only by virtue of those titillating ardours created by the
discipline of their opposites, with which they have so surprising
a consent.
This Mrs. Cole could not well acquaint me with, in any
expectation of my offering for service: for, sufficiently easy as I
was in my circumstances, it must have been the temptation of
an immense interest indeed, that could have induced me to
embrace such a job, neither had I ever expressed, nor indeed,
felt the least impulse or curiosity to know more of a taste, that
promised so much more pain than pleasure to those that stood
in no need of such violent goads: what then should move me to
subscribe myself voluntarily to a party of pain, foreknowing it
such? Why, to tell the plain truth, it was a sudden caprice, a
gust of fancy for trying a new experiment, mixed with the vanity
of approving my personal courage to Mrs. Cole, that determined
me, at all risks, to propose myself to her and relieve her from
any farther lookout. Accordingly, I at once pleased and surprised
her, with a frank and unreserved tender of my person to her and
her friend's absolute disposal on this occasion.
My good temporal mother was, however, so kind as to use all
the arguments she could imagine to dissuade me: but, as I found
they only turned on a motive of tenderness to me, I persisted in
my resolution, and thereby acquitted my offer of any suspicion
of its not having been sincerely made, or out of compliment
only. Acquiescing then thankfully in it, Mrs. Cole assured me
"that bating the pain I should be put to, she had no scruple to
engage me to this party, which she assured me I should be
liberally paid for, and which, the secrecy of the transaction
preserved safe from the ridicule that otherwise vulgarly attended
it; that for her part, she considered pleasure, of one sort or
other, as the universal port of destination, and every wind that
blew thither a good one, provided it blew nobody any harm; that
she rather compassionated, than blamed those unhappy persons,
who are under a subjection they cannot shake off, to those
arbitrary tastes that rule their appetites of pleasures with an
unaccountable control: tastes too, as infinitely diversified, as
superior to, and independent of all reasoning as the different
relishes or palates of mankind in their viands, some delicate
stomach nauseating plain meats, and finding no savour but in
highseasoned, luxurious dishes, whilst others again pique
themselves upon detesting them."
I stood now in no need of this preamble of encouragement, or
justification: my word was given, and I was determined to fulfill
my engagements. Accordingly the night was set, and I had all
the necessary previous instructions how to act and conduct
myself. The dining room was duly prepared and lighted up, and
the young; gentleman posted there in waiting, for my
introduction to him.
I was then, by Mrs. Cole, brought in, and presented to him, in
a loose dishabille fitted, by her direction, to the exercise I was to
go through, all in the finest linen and a thorough white uniform:
gown, petticoat, stocking, and satin slippers, like a victim led to
sacrifice; whilst my dark auburn hair, falling in drop-curls over
my neck, created a pleasing distinction of colour from the rest of
my dress.
As soon as Mr. Barville saw me, he got up, with a visible air
of pleasure and surprise, and saluting me, asked Mrs. Cole, if so
fine and delicate a creature would voluntarily submit to such
sufferings and rigours, as were the subject of his assignation.
She answered him properly, and now, reading in his eyes that
she could not too soon leave us together, she went out, after
recommending to him to use moderation with so tender a
novice.
But whilst she was employing his attention, mine had been
taken up with examining the figure and person of this unhappy
young gentleman, who was thus unaccountably condemned to
have his pleasure lashed into him, as boys have their learning.
He was exceedingly fair, and, smooth complexioned, and
appeared to me no more than twenty at most, though he was
three years older than what my conjectures gave him; but then
he owed this favourable mistake to a habit of fatness, which
spread through a short, squab stature; and a round, plump,
fresh coloured face gave him greatly the look of a Bacchus, had
not an air of austerity, not to say sternness, very unsuitable even
to his shape of face, dashed that character of joy, necessary to
complete the resemblance. His dress was extremely neat, but
plain, and far inferior to the ample fortune he was in full
possession of; this too was a taste in him, and not avarice.
As soon as Mrs. Cole was gone, he seated me near him, when
now his face changed upon me, into an expression of the most
pleasing sweetness and good humour, the most remarkable for
its sudden shift from the other extreme, which I found
afterwards, when I knew more of his character, was owing to a
habitual state of conflict with, and dislike of himself, for being
enslaved to so peculiar a lust, by the fatality of a constitutional
ascendant, that rendered him incapable of receiving any
pleasure, till he submitted to these extraordinary means of
procuring it at the hands of pain, whilst the constancy of this
repining consciousness stamped at length that cast of sourness
and severity on his features: which was, in fact, very foreign to
the natural sweetness of his temper.
After a competent preparation by apologies, and
encouragement to go through my part with spirit and constancy,
he stood up near the fire, whilst I went to fetch the instruments
of discipline out of a closet hard by: these were several rods,
made each of two or three strong twigs of birch tied together,
which he took, handled, and viewed with as much pleasure, as I
did with a kind of shuddering presage.
Next we took from the side of the room a long broad bench,
made easy to lie at length on by a soft cushion in a callico-cover;
and everything being now ready, he took his coat and waistcoat
off; and at his motion and desire, I unbuttoned his breeches, and
rolling up his shirt rather above his waist, tucked it on securely
there; when directing naturally my eyes to that humoursone
master-movement, in whose favaur all these dispositions were
making, it seemed almost shrunk into his body, scarce showing
its tip above the sprout of hairy curls that clothed those parts, as
you may have-seen a wren peeping its head out of the grass.
 Stooping them to untie his garters, he gave them to me for the
use of tying him down to the legs of the bench: a circumstance
no farther necessary than, as I suppose, it made part of the
humour of the thing, since he prescribed it to himself, amongst
the rest of the ceremonial.
I led him then to the bench, and according to my cue, played
at forcing him to lie down: which, after-some little show of
reluctance, for form-sake, he submitted to; he was straightway
extended flat upon his: belly, on the bench, with a pillow under
his face; and as he thus tamely lay, I tied him slightly hand and
feet, to the legs of it; which done, his shirt remaining-trussed up
over the small of his back, I drew his breeches quite down to his
knees; and now he lay, in all the fairest, broadest display of that
part of the back-view; in which a pair of chubby, smooth-
cheeked and passing white posteriors rose cushioning upwards
from two stout, fleshful thighs, and ending their cleft, or
separation by an union at the small of the back, presented a
bold mark, that swelled, as it were, to meet the scourge.
Seizing now one of the rods, I stood over him, and according
to his direction, gave him in one breath, ten lashes with much
good-will, and the utmost nerve and vigour of arm that I could
put to them, so as to make those fleshy orbs quiver again under
them; whilst he himself seemed no more concerned, or to mind
them, than a lobster would a flea-bite. In the mean time, I view
intently the effect of them, which to me at last appeared
surprisingly cruel: every lash had skimmed the surface of those
white cliffs, which they deeply reddened, and lapping round the
side of the furthermost from me, cut specially, into the dimple of
it, such livid weals, as the blood either spun out from, or stood
in large drops on; and, from some of the cuts, I picked out even
the splinters of the rod that had stuck in the skin. Nor was this
raw work to be wondered at, considering the greenness of the
twigs and the severity of the infliction, whilst the whole surface
of the skin was so smooth-stretched over the hard and firm pulp
of flesh that filled it, as to yield no play, or elusive swagging
under the stroke: which thereby took place the more plump, and
cut into the quick.
 I was however already so moved at the piteous sight, that I
from my heart repented the undertaking, and would willing had
given over, thinking he had full enough; but, he encouraging and
beseeching me earnestly to proceed, I gave him ten more lashes;
and then resting, surveyed the increase of bloody appearances.
And at length, steeled to the height, by his stoutness in
suffering, I continued the discipline, by intervals, till I observed
him wreathing and twisting his body, in a way that I could
plainly perceive was not the effect of pain, but of some new and
powerful sensation: curious to dive into the meaning of which,
in one of my pauses of intermission, I approached, as he still
kept working, and grinding his belly against the cushion under
him: and first stroking the untouched and unhurt side of the
flesh-mount next me, then softly insinuating my hand under his
thigh, felt the posture things were in forwards, which was
indeed surprising: for that machine of him, which I had, by its
appearance, taken for an impalpable, or at least a very
diminutive subject, was now, in virtue of all that smart and
havoc of his skin behind, grown not only to a prodigious
stiffness of erection, but to a size that frighted even me: a non-
pareil thickness indeed! the head of it alone filled the utmost
capacity of my grasp. And when, as he heaved and wriggled to
and fro, in the agitation of his strange pleasure, it came into
view, it had something of the air of a round fillet of veal, and
like its owner, squab, and short in proportion to its breadth; but
when he felt my hand there, he begged I would go on briskly
with my jerking, or he should never arrive at the last stage of
pleasure.
Resuming then the rode and the exercise of it, I had fairly
worn out three bundles, when, after an increase of struggles and
motion, and a deep sigh or two, I saw him lie still and
motionless; and now he desired me to desist, which I instantly
did; and proceeding to untie him, I could not but be amazed at
his passive fortitude, on viewing the skin of his butchered,
mangled posteriors, late so white, smooth and polished, now all
one side of them a confused cut-work of weals, livid flesh,
gashes and gore, insomuch that when he stood up, he could
scarce walk; in short, he was in sweet-briars.
Then I plainly perceived, on the cushion, the marks of a
plenteous effusion, and already had his sluggard member run up
to its old nestling-place, and enforced itself again, as if ashamed
to shew its head; which nothing, it seems, could raise but stripes
inflicted on its opposite neighbours, who were thus constantly
obliged to suffer for his caprice.
My gentleman had now put on his clothes and recomposed
himself, when giving me a kiss, and placing me by him, he sat
himself down as gingerly as possible, with one side off the
cushion, which was too sore for him to bear resting any part of
his weight on.
Here he thanked me for the extreme pleasure I had procured
him, and seeing, perhaps, some marks in my countenance of
terror and apprehension of retaliation on my own skin, for what
I had been the instrument of his suffering in his, he assured me,
"he was ready to give up to me any engagement I might deem
myself under to stand him, as he had done me, but that if I
proceeding in my consent to it, he would consider the difference
of my sex, its greater delicacy and incapacity to undergo pain."
Reheartened at which, and piqued in honour, as I thought, not
to flinch so near the trial, especially as I well knew Mrs. Cole
was an eye-witness, from her stand of espial, to the whole of our
transaction, I was now less afraid of my skin, than of his not
furnishing me with an opportunity of signalizing my resolution.
Consonant to this disposition was my answer, but my courage
was still more in my head, than in my heart; and as cowards
rush into danger they fear, in order to be the sooner rid of the
pain of that sensation, I was entirely pleased with his hastening
matters into execution.
He had then little to do, but to unloose the strings of my
petticoats, and lift them, together with my shift, navel-high,
where he just tucked them up loosely, and might be slipt up
higher at pleasure. Then viewing me round with great seeming
delight, he laid me at length on my face upon the bench, and
when I expected he would tie me, as I had done him, and held
out my hands, not without fear and a little trembling, he told
me, "he would by no means terrify me unnecessarily with such a
confinement; for that though he meant to put my constancy to a
trial, the standing it was to be completely voluntary on my side,
and therefore I might be at full liberty to get up whenever I
found the pain too much for me." You cannot imagine how much
I thought myself bound, by being thus allowed to remain loose,
and how much spirit this confidence in me gave me, so that I
was even from my heart careless how much my flesh might
suffer in honour of it.
All my back parts, naked half way up, were now fully at his
mercy: and first, he stood at a convenient distance, delighting
himself with a gloating survey of the attitude I lay in, and of all
the secret stores I thus exposed to him in fair display. Then,
springing eagerly towards me, he covered all those naked parts
with a fond profusion of kisses; and now, taking hold of the rod,
rather wantoned with me, in gentle inflictions on those tender
trembling masses of my flesh behind, than in any way hurt
them, till by degrees, he began to tingle them with smarter
lashes, so as to provoke a red colour into them, which I knew, as
well by the flagrant glow I felt there, as by his telling me, they
now emulated the native roses of my other cheeks. When he had
thus amused himself with admiring, and toying with them, he
went on to strike harder, and more hard, so that I needed all my
patience not to cry out, or complain at least. At last, he twigged
me so smartly as to fetch blood in more than one lash: at sight
of which he flung down the rod, flew to me, kissed away the
starting drops, and sucking the wounds eased a good deal of my
pain. But now raising me on my knees, and making me kneel
with them straddling wide, that tender part of me, naturally the
province of pleasure, not of pain, came in for its share of
suffering: for now, eyeing it wistfully, he directed the rod so that
the sharp ends of the twigs lighted there, so sensibly, that I
could not help wincing, and writhing my limbs with smart; so
that my contortions of body must necessarily throw it into
infinite variety of postures and points of view, fit to feast the
luxury of the eye. But still I bore every thing without crying out:
when presently giving me another pause, he rushed, as it were,
on that part whose lips, and round about, had felt this cruelty,
and by way of reparation, glued his own to them; then he
opened, shut, squeezed them, plucked softly the overgrowing
moss, and all this in a style of wild passionate rapture and
enthusiasm, that expressed excess of pleasure; till betaking
himself to the rod again, encouraged by my passiveness, and
infuriated with this strange taste of delight, he made my poor
posteriors pay for the ungovernableness of it; for now showing
them no quarter, the traitor cut me so, that I wanted but little of
fainting away, when he gave over. And yet I did not utter one
groan, or angry expostulation; but in my heart I resolved nothing
so seriously, as never to expose myself again to the like
severities.
You may guess then in what a curious pickle those soft flesh-
cushions of mine were, all so red, raw, and in fine, terribly
clawed off; but so far from feeling any pleasure in it, that the
recent smart made me pout a little, and not with the greatest air
of satisfaction receive the compliments, and after-caresses of the
author of my pain.
As soon as my clothes were huddled on in a little decency, a
supper was brought in by the discreet Mrs. Cole herself, which
might have piqued the sensuality of a cardinal, accompanied
with a choice of the richest wines: all which she set before us,
and went out again, without having, by a word or even by a
smile, given us the least interruption or confusion, in those
moments of secrecy, that we were not yet ripe to the admission
of a third too.
I sat down then, still scarce in charity with my butcher, for
such I could not help considering him, and was moreover not a
little piqued at the gay, satisfied air of his countenance, which I
thought myself insulted by. But when the now necessary
refreshment to me of a glass of wine, and a little eating (all the
time observing a profound silence) had somewhat cheered and
restored me to spirits, and as the smart began to go off, my good
humour returned accordingly: which alteration not escaping him,
he said and did every thing that could confirm me in, and indeed
exalt it.
But scarce was supper well over, before a change so incredible
was wrought in me, such violent, yet pleasingly irksome
sensations took possession of me that I scarce knew how to
contain myself; the smart of the lashes was now converted into
such a prickly heat, such fiery tinglings, as made me sigh,
squeeze my thighs together, shift and wriggle about my seat,
with a furious restlessness; whilst these itching ardours, thus
excited in those parts on which the storm of discipline had
principally fallen, detached legions of burning, subtile,
stimulating spirits, to their opposite spot and centre of
assemblage, where their titillation raged so furiously, that I was
even stinging made with them. No wonder then that in such a
taking, and devoured by flames that licked up all modesty and
reserve, my eyes, now charged brimful of the most intense
desire, fired on my companion very intelligible signal of distress:
my companion, I say, who grew in them every instant more
amiable, and more necessary to my urgent wishes and hopes of
immediate ease.
Mr. Barville, no stranger, by experience, to these situations,
soon knew the pass I was brought to soon perceived my extreme
disorder; in favour of which, removing the table out of the way,
he began a prelude that flattered me with instant relief, to which
I was not, however, so near as I imagined: for as he was
unbuttoned to me, and tried to provoke and rouse to action his
unactive torpid machine, he blushingly owned that no good was
to be expected from it, unless I took it in hand to re-excite its
languid loitering powers, by just refreshing the smart of the yet
recent blood-raw cuts, seeing it could, no more than a boy's top,
keep up without lashing. Sensible then that I should work as
much for my own profit as his, I hurried my compliance with his
desire, and abridging the ceremonial, whilst he leaned his head
against the back of a chair, I had scarce gently made him feel the
lash, before I saw the object of my wishes give signs of life, and
presently, as it were with a magic touch, is started up into a
noble size and distinction indeed. Hastening then to give me the
benefit of it, he threw me down on the bench; but such was the
refreshed soreness of those parts behind, on my leaning so hard
on them, as became me to compass the admission of that
stupendous head of his machine, that I could not possibly bear
it. I got up then, and tried, by leaning forwards, and turning the
crupper on my assailant, to let him at the back avenue: but here
it was likewise impossible to stand his bearing so fiercely against
me, in his agitations and endeavours to enter that way, whilst
his belly battered directly against the recent sore. What should
we do now? both intolerably heated: both in a fury; but pleasure
is ever inventive for its own ends: he strips me in a trice stark
naked, and placing a broad settee-cushion on the carpet before
the fire, oversets me gently, topsy turvy, on it; and handling me
only at the waist, whilst you may be sure I favoured all my
dispositions, brought my legs round his neck; so that my head
was kept from the floor only by my hands and the velvet
cushion, which was now bespread with my flowing hair: thus I
stood on my head and hands, supported by him in such manner,
that whilst my thighs clung round him, so as to expose to his
sight all my back figure, including the theatre of his bloody
pleasure, the centre of my fore pair fairly bearded the ob-jest of
its rage, that now stood in fine condition to give me satisfaction
for the injuries of its neighbours. But as this posture was
certainly not the easiest, and our imaginations, wound up to the
height, could suffer no delay, he first, with the utmost eagerness
and effort, just lip-lodged that broad acorn-fashioned head of his
instrument; and still befriended by the fury with which he had
made that impression, he soon stuffed in the rest; when now,
with a pursuit of thrusts, fiercely urged, he absolutely
overpowered and absorbed all sense of pain and uneasiness,
whether from my wounds behind, my most untoward posture, or
the oversize of his stretcher, in an infinitely predominant
delight; when now all my whole spirits of life and sensation
rushing, impetuously to the cock-pit, where the prize of pleasure
was hotly in dispute and clustering to a point there, I soon
received the dear relief of nature from these over-violent strains
and provocations of it; harmonizing with which, my gallant
spouted into me such a potent overflow of the balsamic
injection, as softened and unedged all those irritating stings of a
new species of titillation, which I had been so intolerably
maddened with, and restored the ferment of my senses to some
degree of composure.
I had now achieved this rare adventure ultimately much more
to my satisfaction than I had bespoken the nature of it to turn
out; nor was it much lessened, you may think, by spark's lavish
praises of my constancy and complaisance, which he gave weight
to by a present that greatly surpassed my utmost expectation,
besides his gratification to Mrs. Cole.
I was not, however, at any time re-enticed to renew with him,
or resort again to the violent expedient of lashing nature into
more haste than good speed: which, by the way, I conceive acts
somewhat in the manner of a dose of Spanish flies; with more
pain perhaps, but less danger; and might be necessary to him,
but was nothing less so than to me, whose appetite wanted the
bridle more than the spur.
Mrs. Cole, to whom this adventurous exploit had more and
more endeared me, looked on me now as a girl after her own
heart, afraid of nothing, and, on a good account, hardly enough
to fight all the weapons of pleasure through. Attentive then, in
consequence of these favourable conceptions, to promote either
my profit or pleasure, she had special regard for the first, in a
new gallant of a very singular turn, that she procured for and
introduced to me.
This was a grave staid, solemn, elderly gentleman, whose
peculiar humour was a delight in combing fine tresses of hair;
and as I was perfectly headed to his taste, he used to come
constantly at my toilet hours, when I let down my hair as loose
as nature, and abandoned it to him to do what he pleased with
it; and accordingly he would keep me an hour or more in play
with it, drawing the comb through it, winding the curls round
his fingers, even kissing it as he smoothed it; and all this led to
no other use of my person, or any other liberties whatever, any
more than if a distinction of sexes had not existed.
Another peculiarity of taste he had, which was to present me
with a dozen pairs of the whitest kid gloves at a time: these he
would divert himself with drawing on me, and then biting off
their finger ends; all which fooleries of a silly appetite, the old
gentleman paid more liberally for, than most others did for more
essential favours. This lasted till a violent cough, seizing and
laying him up, delivered me from this most innocent and insipid
trifler, for I never heard more of him after his first retreat.
You may be sure a by-jod of this sort interfered with no other
pursuit, or plan of life; which I led, in truth, with a modesty and
reserve that was less the work of virtue than of exhausted
novelty, a glut of pleasure, and easy circumstances, that made
me indifferent to any engagements in which pleasure and profit
were not eminently united; and such I could, with the less
impatience, wait for at the hands of time and fortune, as I was
satisfied I could never mend my pennyworths, having evidently
been served at the top of the market, and even been pampered
with dainties: besides that, in the sacrifice of a few momentary
impulses, I found a secret satisfaction in respecting myself, as
well as preserving the life and freshness of my complexion.
Louisa and Emily did not carry indeed their reserve so high as I
did; but still they were far from cheap or abandoned, though
two of their adventures seemed to contradict this general
character, which, for their singularity, I shall give you in course,
beginning first with Emily's:
Louisa and she went one night to a ball, the first in the habit
of a shepherdess, Emily in that of a shepherd: I saw them in
their dresses before they went, and nothing in nature could
represent a prettier boy than this last did, being so fair and well
limbed. They had kept together for some time, when Louisa,
meeting an old acquaintance of hers, very cordially gives her
companion the slip, and leaves her under the protection of her
boy's habit, which was not much, and of her discretion, which
was, it seems, still less. Emily, finding herself deserted,
sauntered thoughtless about a while, and, as much for coolness
and air as any thing else, at length pulled off her mask and went
to the sideboard; where, eyed and marked out by a gentleman in
a very handsome domino, she was accosted by, and fell into chat
with him. The domino, after a little discourse, in which Emily
doubtless distinguished her good nature and easiness more than
her wit, began to make violent love to her, and drawing her
insensibly to some benches at the lower end of the masquerade
room, got her to sit by him, where he squeezed her hands,
pinched her cheeks, praised and played with her fine hair,
admired her complexion, and all in a style of courtship dashed
with a certain oddity, that not comprehending the mystery of,
poor Emily attributed to his falling in with the humour of her
disguise; and being naturally not the cruellest of her profession,
began to incline to a parley on those essentials. But here was the
stress of the joke: he took her really for what she appeared to
be, a smock-faced boy; and she, forgetting her dress, and of
course ranging quite wide of his ideas, took all those address to
be paid to herself as a woman, which she precisely owed to his
not thinking her one. However, this double error was pushed to
such a height on both sides, that Emily, who saw nothing in him
but a gentleman of distinction by those points of dress to which
his disguise did not extend, warmed too by the wine he had
plyed her with, and the caresses he had lavished upon her,
suffered herself to be persuaded to go to a bagnio with him; and
thus, losing sight of Mrs. Cole's cautions, with a blind
confidence, put herself into his hands, to be carried wherever he
pleased. For his part, equally blinded by his wishes, whilst here
gregious simplicity favoured his deception more than the most
exquisite art could have done, he supposed, no doubt, that he
had lighted on some soft simpleton, fit for his; purpose, or some
kept minion broken to his hand, who understood him perfectly
well, and entered into his designs. But, be that as it would, he
led her to a coach, went into it with her, and brought her to a
very handsome apartment, with a bed in it; but whether it was a
bagnio or not, she could not tell, having spoken to nobody but
himself. But when they were alone together, and her inamorato
began to proceed to those extremities which instantly discover
the sex, she remarked, that no description could paint up to the
life, the mixture of pique, confusion and disappointment, that
appeared in his countenance, joined to the mournful
exclamation: "By heavens, a woman!" This at once opened her
eyes, which had been shut in downright stupidity. However, as
if he had meant to retrieve that escape, he still continued to toy
with and fondle her, but with so staring an alteration from
extreme warmth into a chill and forced civility, that even Emily
herself could not but take notice of it, and now began to wish
she had paid more regard to Mrs. Cole's premonitions against
ever engaging with a stranger. And now an excess of timidity
succeeded to an excess of confidence, and she thought herself so
much at his mercy and discretion, that she stood passive
throughout the whole progress of his prelude: for now, whether
the impressions of so great a beauty had even made him forgive
her sex, or whether her appearance or figure in that dress still
humoured his first illusion, he recovered by degrees a good part
of his first warmth, and keeping Emily with her breeches still
unbuttoned, stript them down to her knees, and gently impelling
her to lean down, with her face against the bed-side, placed her
so, that the double way, between the double rising behind,
presented the choice fair to him, and he was so fairly set on a
mis-direction, as to give the girl no small alarms for fear of
losing a maidenhead she had not dreamt of. However, her
complaints, and a resistance, gentle, but firm, checked and
brought him to himself again; so that turning his steed's head, he
drove him at length in the right road, in which his imagination
having probably made the most of those resemblances that
flattered his taste, he got, with much ado, to his journey's end:
after which, he led her out himself, and walking with her two or
three streets length, got her a chair, when making her a present
not any thing inferior to what she could have expected, he left
her, well recommended to the chairmen, who, on her directions,
brought her home.
This she related to Mrs. Cole and me the same morning, not
without the visible remains of the fear and confusion she had
been in, still stamped on her countenance. Mrs. Cole's remark
was, that her indiscretion proceeding from a constitutional
facility, there were little hopes of any thing curing her of it, but
repeated severe experience. Mine was, that I could not conceive
how it was possible for mankind to run into a taste, not only
universally odious, but absurd, and impossible to gratify; since,
according to the notions and experience I had of things, it was
not in nature to force such immense disproportions. Mrs. Cole
only smiled at my ignorance, and said nothing towards my
undeception, which was not affected but by ocular
demonstration, some months after, which a most singular
accident furnished me, and which I will here set down, that I
may not return again to so disagreeable a subject.
I had, on a visit intended to Harriet, who had taken lodgings
at Hampton-court, hired a chariot to go out thither, Mrs. Cole
having, promised to accompany me; but some indispensable
business intervening, to detain her, I was obliged to set out
alone; and scarce had I got a third of my way, before the axle-
tree broke down, and I was well off to get out, safe and unhurt,
into a public-house, of a tolerable handsome appearance, on the
road. Here the people told me that the stage would come by in a
couple of hours at farthest, upon; which, determining to wait for
it, sooner than lose the jaunt I had got so far forward on, I was
carried into a very clean decent room, up one pair of stairs,
which I took possession of for the time I had to stay, in right of
calling for sufficient to do the house justice.
Here, whilst I was amusing myself with looking out of the
window, a single horse-chaise stopt at the door, out of which
lightly leaped two young' gentlemen, for so they seemed, who
came in only as it were to bait and refresh a little, for they gave
their horse to be held! in readiness against they came out. And
presently I heard the door of the next room, where they were let
in, and called about them briskly; and as soon as they were
served, I could just hear that they shut and fastened the door on
the inside.
A spirit of curiosity, far from sudden, since I do not know
when I was without it, prompted me, without any particular
suspicion, or other drift or view, to see what they were, and
examine their persons and behaviour. The partition of our rooms
was one of those moveable ones that, when taken down, served
occasionally to lay them into one, for the conveniency of as
larger company; and now, my nicest search could not shew me
the shadow of a peep-hole, a circumstance which probably had
not escaped the review of the parties on the other side, whom
much it stood upon not to be deceived in it; but at length I
observed a paper patch of the same colour as the wainscot,
which I took to conceal some flaw; but then it was so high, that
I was obliged to stand upon a chair to reach it, which I did as
soft as possible, and, with a point of a bodkin, soon pierced it,
and opened myself espial room sufficient. And now, applying my
eye close, I commanded the room perfectly, and could see my
two young sparks romping and pulling one another about,
entirely, to my imagination, in frolic and innocent play.
The eldes might be, on my nearest guess, towards nineteen, a
tall comely young man, in a white fustian frock, with a green
velvet cape, and cut bob-wig.
The youngest could not be above seventeen, fair, ruddy,
completely well made, and to say the truth, a sweet pretty
stripling: he was too, I fancy, a country lad, by his dress, which
was a green plush frock, and breeches of the same, white
waistcoat and stockings, a jockey cap, with his fellowish hair,
long and loose, in natural curls.
But after a look of circumspection, which I saw the eldest cast
every way round the room, probably in too much hurry and heat
not to overlook the very small opening I was posted at,
especially at the height it was, whilst my eye close to it kept the
light from shining through and betraying it, he said something to
his companion that presently changed the face of things.
For now the elder began to embrace, to press and kiss the
younger, to put his hands into his bosom, and give him such
manifest signs of an amorous intention, as made me conclude
the other to be a girl in disguise: a mistake that nature kept me
in countenance for, for she had certainly made one, when she
gave him the made stamp.
In the rashness then of their age, and bent as they were to
accomplish their project of preposterous pleasure, at the risk of
the very worst of consequences, where a discovery was nothing
less than improbable, they now proceeded to such lengths as
soon satisfied me what they were.
For presently the eldest unbuttoned the other's breeches, and
removing the linen barrier, brought out to view a white shaft,
middle sized, and scarce fledged, when after handling and
playing with it a little, with other dalliance, all received by the
boy without other opposition than certain wayward coyness, ten
times-more alluring than repulsive, he got him so turned round,
with his face from him, to a chair that stood hard by; when
knowing, I suppose, his office, the Ganymede now obsequiously
leaned his head against the back of it, and projecting his body,
made a fair mark, still covered with his shirt. As he thus stood
in a side view to me, but fronting his companion, who, presently
unmasking his battery, produced an engine that certainly
deserved to be put to a better use, and very fit to confirm me in
my disbelief of the possibility of things; being pushed to odious
extremities, which I had built on the disproportion of parts; but
this disbelief I was now cured of, as by my consent all young
men should likewise be, that their innocence may not be
betrayed into such snares, for want of knowing the extent of
their danger: for nothing is more certain than that ignorance of
advice is by no means a guard against it.
Slipping, then, aside the young lad's shirt, and tucking it up
under his clothes behind, he shewed to the open air those
globular fleshy eminences that compose the Mount Peasants of
Rome, and which now, with all the narrow vale that intersects
them, stood displayed and exposed to his attack; nor could I
without a shudder behold the dispositions he made for it. First,
then, moistening well with spittle his instrument, obviously to
make it glib, he pointed, he introduced it, as I could plainly
discern, not only from its direction and my losing sight of it, but
by the writhing, twisting and soft murmured complaints of the
young sufferer; but at length, the first straits of entrance being
pretty well go through, every thing seemed to move and go
pretty currently on, as on a carpet road, without much rub or
resistance; and now, passing one hand round his minions' hips,
he got hold of his red-topped ivory toy, that stood perfectly stiff,
and shewed, that if he was like his mother behind, he was like
his father before; this he diverted himself with, whilst, with the
other he wantoned with his hair, and leaning forward over his
back, drew his face, from which the boy shook the loose curls
that fell over it, in the posture he stood him in, and brought him
towards his, so as to receive a long breathed kiss; after which,
renewing his driving, and thus continuing to harass his rear, the
height of the fist came on with its usual symptoms, and
dismissed the action.
The criminal scene they acted, I had the patience to see to an
end, purely that I might gather more facts and certainty against
them in my design to do their deserts instant justice; and
accordingly, when they had re-adjusted themselves; and were
preparing to go out, burning as I was with rage and indignation,
I jumped down from the chair, in order to raise the house upon
them, but with such an unlucky impetuosity, that some nail or
ruggedness in the floor caught my foot, and flung me on my face
with such violence, that I fell senseless on the ground, and lay
there some time before any one came to my relief: so that they,
alarmed, I suppose, by the noise of my fall, had more than the
necessary time to make a safe retreat. This they effected, as I
learnt, with a precipitation nobody could account for, until,
when come to myself, and composed enough to speak, I
acquainted those of the house with the whole transaction I had
been evidence to.
When I came home again, and told Mrs. Cole this adventure,
she very sensibly observed to me, that "there was no doubt of
the due vengeance one time or other overtaking these
miscreants, however they might escape for the present; and that,
had I been the temporal instrument of it, I should have been put
to a great deal more trouble and confusion than I imagined; that,
as to the thing itself, the less said of it was the better; but that
though she might be suspected of partiality, from its being the
common cause of womankind, out of whose mouths this practice
tended to take something more than bread, yet she protested
against any mixture of passion, with a declaration extorted from
her by pure regard to truth; which was, that whatever effect this
infamous passion had in other ages and other countries, it
seemed a peculiar blessing on our air and climate, that there was
a plaguespot visibly imprinted on all that are tainted with it, in
this nation at least, for that among numbers of that stamp whom
she had known, or at least were universally under the
scandalous suspicion of it, she would not name an exception
hardly to one of them, whose character was not, in all other
respects, the most worthless and despicable that could be; stript
of all the manly virtues of their own sex, and filled up with only
the worst vices and follies of ours; that, in fine, they were scarce
less execrable than ridiculous in their monstrous inconsistence,
of loathing and contemning women, and at the same time apeing
all their manners, airs, lisps, scuttle, and, in general, all their
little modes of affectation, which become them at least better,
than they do these unsexed, male misses."
But here, washing my hands of them, I re-plunge into the
stream of my history, which I may very properly ingraft a
terrible sally of Louisa's, since I had some share in it myself, and
have besides engaged myself to relate it, in point of countenance
to poor Emily. It will add, too, one more example to thousands,
in confirmation of the maxim, that women get once out of
compass, there are no lengths of licentiousness, that they are not
capable of running.
One morning then, that both Mrs. Cole and Emily were gone
out for the day, and only Louisa and I (not to mention the
house-maid) were left in charge of the house, whilst we were
loitering away the time, in looking through the shop windows,
the son of a poor woman, who earned very hard bread indeed by
mending of stockings, in a stall in the neighbourhood, offered us
some nosegays, ranged round a small basket; by selling of which
the poor boy eked out his mother's maintenance of them both:
nor was he fit for any other way of livelihood, since he was not
only a perfect changeling, or idiot, but stammered so that there
was no understanding even those sounds his half-dozen animals
ideas, at most, prompted him to utter.
The boys and servants in the neighbourhood had given him
the nick-name of good-natured Dick, from the soft simpleton's
doing every thing he was bid at the first word, and from his
naturally having no turn to mischief; then, by the way, he was
perfectly well made, stout, clean-limbed, tall of his age, as
strong as a horse, and, withal, pretty featured; so that he was
not, absolutely, such a figure to be snuffled at neither, if your
nicety could, in favour of such essentials, have dispensed with a
face unwashed, hair tangled for want of combing, and so ragged
a pliht, that he might have disputed points of shew with any
heathen philosopher of them all.
This boy we had often seen, and bought his flowers, out of
pure compassion, and nothing more; but just at this time as he
stood presenting us his basket, a sudden whim, a start of
wayward fancy, seized Louisa; and, without consulting me, she
calls him in, and beginning to examine his nosegays, culls out
two, one for herself, another for me, and pulling out half a
crown, very currently gives it him to change, as if she had really
expected he could have changed it: but the boy, scratching his
head, made his signs explain his inability in place of words,
which he could not, with all his struggles, articulate.
Louisa, at this, says: "Well, my lad, come up stairs with me,
and I will give you your due," winking at the same time to me,
and beckoning me to accompany her, which I did, securing first
the street-door, that by this means, together with the shop,
became wholly the care of the faithful house-maid.
As we went up, Louisa whispered me "that she had conceived
a strange longing to be satisfied, whether the general rule held
good with regard to this changeling, and how far nature had
made him amends, in her best bodily gifts, for her denial of the
sublimer intellectual ones; begin, at the same time, my
assistance in procuring her this satisfaction." A want of
complaisance was never my vice, and I was so far from opposing
this extravagant frolic, that now, bit with the same maggot, and
my curiosity conspiring with hers, I entered plump into it, on my
own account.
Consequently, soon as we came into Louisa's bed-chamber,
whilst she was amusing him with picking out his nosegays, I
undertook the lead, and began the attack. As it was not then
very material to keep much measures with a mere natural, I
made presently free with him, though at my first motion of
meddling, his surprise and confusion made him receive my
advances but awkwardly: nay, insomuch that he bashfully shied,
and shied back a little; till encouraging him with my eyes,
plucking him playfully by the hair, sleeking his cheeks, and
forwarding my point by a number of little wantonnesses, I soon
turned him familiar, and gave nature her sweetest alarm: so that
aroused, and beginning to feel himself, we could, amidst all the
innocent laugh and grin I had provoked him into, perceive the
fire lighting in his eyes, and, diffusing over his cheeks, blend its
glow with that of his blushes. The emotion in short of animal
pleasure glared distinctly in the simpleton's countenance; yet
struck with the novelty of the scene, he did not know which way
to look or move; but tame, passive, simpering, with his mouth
half open, in stupid rapture, stood and tractably suffered me to
do what I pleased with him. His basket was dropt out of his
hands, which Louisa took care of.
I had now, through more than one rent, discovered and felt
his thighs, the skin of which seemed the smoother and fairer for
the coarseness, and even the dirt of his dress, as the teeth of
negroes seem the whiter for the surrounded black; and poor
indeed of habit, poor of understanding, he was, however,
abundantly rich in personal treasures, such as flesh, firm,
plump, and replete with the juices of youth, and robust well-knit
limbs. My fingers too had now got within reach of the true, the
genuine sensitive plant, which, instead of shrinking from the
touch, joys to meet it, and swells and vegetates under it: mine
pleasingly informed me that matters were so ripe for the
discovery we meditated, that they were too mighty for the
confinement they were ready to break. A waistband that I
unskewered, and a rag of a shirt that I removed, and which
could not have covered a quarter of it, revealed the whole of the
idiot's standard of distinction, erect, in full pride and display:
but such a one! it was positively of so tremendous a size, that
prepared as we were to see something extraordinary, it still, out
of measure, surpassed our expectation, and astonished even me,
who had not been used to trade in trifles. In fine, it might have
answered very well the making a skew of; its enormous head
seemed, in hue and size, not unlike a common sheep's heart;
then you might have trolled dice securely along the broad back
of the body of it; the length of it too was prodigious; then the
rich appendage of the treasure-bag beneath, large in proportion,
gathered and crisped up round in shallow furrows, helped to fill
the eye, and complete the proof of his being a natural, not quite
in vain; since it was full manifest that he inherited, and largely
too, the prerogative of majesty which distinguishes that
otherwise most unfortunate condition, and gave rise to the
vulgar saying "That a fool's bauble is a lady's playfellow." Not
wholly without reason: for, generally speaking, it is in love as it
is in war, where the longest weapon carries it. Nature, in short,
had done so much for him in those parts, that she perhaps held
herself acquitted in doing so little for his head.
For my part, who had sincerely no intention to push the joke
further than simply satisfying my curiosity with the sight of it
alone, I was content, in spite of the temptation that stared me in
the face, with having raised a May-pole for another to hang a
garland on: for, by this time, easily reading Louisa's desires in
her wishful eyes, I acted the commodious part, and made her,
who sought no better sport, significant terms of encouragement
to go through stitch with her adventure; intimating too that I
would stay and see fair play: in which, indeed, I had in view to
humour a new born curiosity, to observe what appearances
active nature would put on in a natural, in the course of this her
darling operation.
Louisa, whose appetite was up, and who, like the industrious
bee, was, it seems, not above gathering the sweet of so rare a
flower, though she found it planted on a dunghill, was but too
readily disposed to take the benefit of my cession. Urged then
strongly by her own desires, and emboldened by me, she
presently determined to risk a trial of parts with the idiot, who
was by this time nobly inflamed for her purpose, by all the
irritation we had used to put the principles of pleasure
effectually into motion, and to wind up the springs of its organ
to their supreme pitch; and it stood accordingly stiff and
straining, ready to burst with the blood and spirits that swelled
it... to a bulk! No! I shall never forget it.
Louisa then, taking and holding the fine handle that so
invitingly offered itself, led the ductile youth, by that mastertool
of his, as she stept backward towards the bed; which he joyfully
gave way to, under the incitations of instinct, and palpably
delivered up to the goad of desire.
Stopped then by the bed, she took the fall she loved, and
leaned to the most, gently backward upon it, still holding fast
what she held, and taking care to give her clothes a convenient
toss up, so that her thighs duly disclosed, and elevated, laid
open all the outward prospect of the treasury of love: the rose-
lipt overture presenting the cockpit so fair, that it was not in
nature even for a natural to miss it. Nor did he: for Louisa, fully
bent on grappling with it, and impatient of dalliance or delay,
directed faithfully the point of the battering-piece, and bounded
up with a rage of so varocious appetite, to meet and favour the
thrust of insertion, that the fierce activity on both sides effected
it with such pain of distention, that Louisa cried out violently,
that she was hurt beyond bearing, that she was killed. But it was
too late: the storm was up, and force was on her to give way to
it; for now the man-machine, strongly worked upon by the
sensual passion, felt so manfully his advantages and superiority,
felt withal the sting of pleasure so intolerable, that maddening
with it, his joys began to assume a character of furiousness,
which made me tremble for the too tender Louisa. He seemed, at
this juncture, greater than himself; his countenance, before so
void of meaning, or expression, now grew big with the
importance of the act he was upon. In short, it was not now that
he was to be played the fool with. But, what is pleasant enough,
I myself was awed into a sort of respect for him, by the comely
terrors his motions dressed him in: his eyes shooting sparks of
fire; his face glowing with ardours that gave another life to it;
his teeth churning; his whole frame agitated with a raging
ungovernable impetuosity: all sensibly betraying the formidable
fierceness with which the genial instinct acted upon him. Butting
then and goring all before him, and mad and wild like an ower-
driven steer, he ploughs up the tender furrow all insensible to
Louisa's complaints; nothing can stop, nothing can keep out a
fury like his: with which, having once got its head in, its blind
rage soon made way for the rest, piercing, rending, and breaking
open all obstruction. The torn, split, wounded girl cries,
struggles, invokes me to her rescue, and endeavours to get from
under the young savage, or shake him off, but alas! in vain: her
breath, might as soon have strength to have quelled his rough
assault, or put him out of his course. And indeed, all her efforts
and struggles were managed with such disorder, that they served
rather to entangle, and fold her the faster in the twine of his
boisterous arms; so that she was tied to the stake, and obliged to
fight the match out, if she died for it. For his part, instinct-
ridden as he was, the expressions of his animal passion,
partaking something of ferocity, were rather worrying than
kisses, intermixed with ravenous love-bites on her cheeks and
necks, the prints of which did not wear out for some days after.
Poor Louisa, however, bore up at length better than could
have been expected: and though she suffered, and greatly too,
yet, ever true to the good old cause, she suffered with pleasure
and enjoyed her pain. And soon now, by dint of an enraged
enforcement, the brute-machine, driven like a whirlwind, made
all smoke again, and wedging its way up, to the utmost
extremity, left her, in point of penetration, nothing to fear or to
desire: and now,

"Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,"

(Shakespeare.)
 Louisa lay, pleased to the heart, pleased to her utmost
capacity of being so, with every fibre in those parts, stretched
almost to breaking, on a rack of joy, whilst the instrument of all
this over-fullness searched her senses with its sweet excess, till
the pleasure gained upon her so, its point stung her so home,
that catching at length the rage from her furious driver and
sharing the riot of his wild rapture, she went wholly out of her
mind into that favourite part of her body, the whole intenseness
of which was so fervously filled, and employed: there alone she
existed, all lost in those delirious transports, those extasies of
the senses, which her winking eyes, the brightened vermilion of
her lips and cheeks, and sighs of pleasure deeply fetched, so
pathetically expressed. In short, she was now as mere a machine
as much wrought on, and had her motions as little at her own
command, as the natural himself, who, thus broke in upon her,
made her feel with a vengeance his tempestuous mettle he
battered with; their active loins quivered again with the violence
of their conflict, till the surge of pleasure, foaming and raging to
a height, drew down the pearly shower that was, to allay this
hurricane. The purely sensitive idiot then first shed those tears
of joy that attend its last moments, not without an agony of
delight, and even almost a roar of rapture, as the gush escaped
him; so sensibly too for Louisa, that she kept him faithful
company, going off, in consent, with the old symptoms: a
delicious delirium, a tremendous convulsive shudder, and the
critical dying: Oh! And now, on his getting off she lay pleasure-
drenched, and regorging its essential sweets; but quite spent,
and gasping for breath, without other sensation of life than in
those exquisite vibrations that trembled still on the strings of
delight; which had been too intensively touched, and which
nature had so ravishingly stirred with, for the senses to be
quickly at peace from.
As for the changeling, whose curious engine had been thus
successfully played off, his shift of countenance and gesture had
even something droll, or rather tragi-comic in it: there was now
an air of sad repining foolishness, superadded to his natural one
of no meaning and idiotism, as he stood with his label of
manhood, now lank, unstiffened, becalmed, and flapping against
his thighs, down which it reached half way, terrible even in its
fall, whilst under the dejection of spirit and flesh, which
naturally followed his eyes, by turns, cast down towards his
struck standard, or piteously lifted to Louisa, seemed to require
at her hands what he had so sensibly parted from to her, and
now ruefully missed. But the vigour of nature, soon returning,
dissipated the blast of faintness which the common law of
enjoyment had subjected him to; and now his basket re-became
his main concern, which I looked for, and brought him, whilst
Louisa restored his dress to its usual condition, and afterwards
pleased him perhaps more by taking all his flowers off his
hands, and paying him, at his rate, for them, than if she had
embarrassed him by a present, that he would have been puzzled
to account for, and might have put others on tracing the motives
of.
Whether she ever returned to the attack I know not, and, to
say truth, I believe not. She had had her freak out, and had
pretty plentifully drowned her curiosity in a glut of pleasure,
which, as it happened, had no other consequence than that the
lad, who retained only a confused memory of the transaction,
would, when he saw her, forget her in favour of the next
woman, tempted, on the report of his parts, to take him in.
Louisa herself did not long outstay this adventure at Mrs. Cole's
(to whom, by the bye, we took care not to boast of our exploit,
till all fear of consequences were clearly over): for an occasion
presenting itself of proving her passion for a young fellow, at the
expense of her discretion, proceeding all in character, she
packed up her toilet, at half a day's warning, and went with him
abroad, since which I entirely lost sight of her, and it never fell
in my way to hear what became of her.
But a few days after she had left us, two very occasion, not to
wrong our training at Mrs. Cole's, especially favourites, and free
of her academy, easily obtained her consent for Emily's and my
acceptance of a party of pleasure, at a little but agreeable house,
belonging to one of them situated not far up the river Thames,
on the Surrey side.
 Every thing being settled, and it being a fine summer day, but
rather of the warmest, we set out after dinner, and got to our
rendezvous about four in the afternoon; where, landing at the
foot of a neat, joyous pavilion, Emily and I were handed into it
by our esquires, and there drank tea with a cheerfulness and
gaiety, that the beauty of the prospect, the serenity of the
weather, and the tender politeness of our sprightly gallants,
naturally led us into.
After tea, and taking a turn in the garden, my particular, who
was the master of the house, and had in no sense schemed this
party of pleasure for a dry one, proposed to us, with that
frankness which his familiarity at Mrs. Cole's entitled him to, as
the weather was excessively hot, to bathe together, under a
commodious shelter that he had prepared expressly for that
purpose, in a creek of the river, with which a side-door of the
pavilion immediately communicated, and where we might be
sure of having our diversion out, safe from interruption, and
with the utmost privacy.
Emily, who never refused anything, and I, who ever delighted
in bathing, and had no exception to the person who proposed it,
or to those pleasure it was easy to guess it implied, took care, on
this occasion, not to wrong our training at Mrs. Cole's, and
agreed to it with as good a grace as we could. Upon which,
without loss of time, we returned instantly to the pavilion, one
door of which opened into a tent, pitched before it, that with its
marquise, formed a pleasing defense again the sun, or the
weather, and was besides as private as we could wish. The lining
of it, embossed cloth, represented a wild forest foliage, from the
top, down to the sides, which, in the same stuff, were figured
with fluted pilasters, with their spaces between filled with
flower vases, the whole having a pay effect croon the eye,
wherever you turned it.
Then it reached sufficiently into the water, yet contained
convenient benches round it, on the dry ground, either to keep
our clothes, or..., or..., in short for more uses than resting upon.
There was a side-table too, loaded with sweetmeats, jellies, and
other eatables, and bottles of wine and cordials, by way of
occasional relief from any rawness, or chill of the water, or from
any faintness from whatever cause; and in fact, my gallant, who
understood chere entiere perfectly, and who, for taste (even if
you would not approve this specimen of it) might have been
comptroller of pleasures to a Roman emperor, had left no
requisite towards convenience or luxury unprovided.
As soon as we had looked round this inviting spot, and every
preliminary of privacy was duly settled, strip was the word:
when the young gentlemen soon dispatched the undressing each
his partner and reduced us to the naked confession of all those
secrets of person which dress generally hides, and which the
discovery of was, naturally speaking, not to our disadvantage.
Our hands, indeed, mechanically carried towards the most
interesting part of us, screened, at first, all from the tufted cliff
downwards, till we took them away at their desire, and
employed them in doing them the same office, of helping off
with their clothes; in the process of which, there passed all the
little wantonnesses and frolics that you may easily imagine.
As for my spark, he was presently undressed, all to his shirt,
the fore-lappet of which as he leaned languishingly on me, he
smilingly pointed to me to observe, as it bellied out, or rose and
fell, according to the unruly starts of the motion behind it; but it
was soon fixed, for now taking off his shirt, and naked as a
Cupid, he shewed it me at so upright a stand, as prepared me
indeed for his application to me for instant ease; but, though the
sight of its fine size was fit enough to fire me, the cooling air, as
I stood in this state of nature, joined to the desire I had of
bathing-first, enabled me to put him off, and tranquillize him,
with the remark, that a little suspense would only set a keener
edge on the pleasure. Leading them the way, and shewing our
friends an example of continency, which they were giving signs
of losing respect to, we went hand in hand into the stream, till it
took us up to our necks, where the no more than grateful
coolness of the wafer gave my senses a delicious refreshment
from the sultriness of the season, and made more alive, more
happy in myself, and, in course, more alert, and open to
voluptuous impressions.
Here I laved and wantoned with the water, or sportively
played with my companion, leaving Emily to deal with hers at
discretion. Mine, at length, not content with making me take the
plunge over head and ears, kept splashing me, and provoking me
with all the little playful tricks he could devise, and which I
strove not to remain in his debt for. We gave, in short, a loose to
mirth; and now, nothing would serve him but giving his hand
the regale of going over every part of me, neck, breast, belly,
thighs, and all the et caetera, so dear to the imagination, under
the pretext of washing and rubbing them; as we both stood in
the water, no higher now than the pit of our stomachs, and
which did not hinder him from feeling, and toying with that leak
that distinguishes our sex, and it so wonderfully water-tight: for
his fingers, in vain dilating and opening it, only let more flame
than water into it, be it said without a figure. At the same time
he made me feel his own engine, which was so well wound up,
as to stand even the working in water, and he accordingly threw
one arm round my neck, and was endeavouring to get the better
of that harsher construction bred by the surrounding fluid; and
had in effect one hiway so far as to make me sensible of the
pleasing stretch of those nether lips, from the in-driving
machine; when, independent of my not liking that awkward
mode of enjoyment, I could not help interrupting him, in order
to become joint spectators of a plan of joy, in hot operation
between Emily and her partner; who impatient of the fooleries
and dalliance of the bath, had led his nymph to one of the
benches on the green bank, where he was very cordially
proceeding to teach her the difference betwixt jest and earnest.
There, setting her on his knee, and gliding one hand over the
surface of that smooth polished snow-white skin of hers, which
now doubly shone with a dew-bright lustre, and presented to the
touch something like what one would imagine of animated ivory,
especially in those ruby-nippled globes, which the touch is so
fond of and delights to make love to, with the other h was
lusciously exploring the sweet secret of nature, in order to make
room for a stately piece of machinery, that stood up-reared,
between her thighs, as she continued siting on his lap, and
pressed hard for instant intromission, which the tender Emily, in
a fit of humour deliciously protracted, affected to decline, and
elude the very pleasure she sighed for, but in a style of
waywardness, so prettily put on, and managed, as to render it
ten times more poignant; then her eyes, all amidst the softest
dying languishment, expressed, ait once a mock denial and
extreme desire, whilst her sweetness was zested with a coyness
so pleasingly provoking, her moods of keeping him off were so
attractive, that they redoubled the impetuous rage with, which,
he covered her with kisses: and kisses that, whilst she seemed to
shy from or scuffle for, the cunning wanton contrived such sly
returns, of, as were, doubtless the sweeter for the gust she gave
them, of being stolen ravished.
Thus Emily, who knew no art but that which nature itself, in
favour of her principal end, pleasure, had inspired her with, the
art of yielding, coyed it indeed, but coyed it to the purpose; for
with all her straining, her wrestling, and striving to break from
the clasp of his arms, she was so far wiser yet than to mean it,
that in her struggles, it was visible she aimed at nothing more
than multiplying points of touch with him, and drawing yet
closer the folds that held them every where entwined, like two
tendrils of a vine intercurling: together: so that the same effect,
as when Louisa strove in good earnest to disengage from the
idiot, was-now produced by different motives.
Mean while, their emersion out of the cold water had caused a
general glow, a tender suffusion of heightened carnation over
their bodies; both equally white and smoothskinned; so that as
their limbs were-thus amorously interwoven, in sweet confusion,
it was scarce possible to distinguish who they respectively
belonged to, but for the brawnier, bolder muscles of the stronger
sex.
In a little time, however, the champion was fairly in with her,
and had tied at all points the true lover's knot; when now, adieu
all the little refinements of a finessed reluctance; adieu the
friendly feint! She was presently driven forcibly out of the power
of using any art; and indeed, what art must not give way, when
nature, corresponding with her assailant, invaded in the heart of
her capital and carried by storm, lay at the mercy of the proud
conqueror, who had made his entry triumphantly and
completely? Soon, however, to become a tributary: for the
engagement growing hotter and hotter, at close quarters, she
presently brought him to the pass of paying down the dear debt
to nature; which she had no sooner collected in, but, like a
duellist who has laid his antagonist at his feet, when he has
himself received a mortal wound, Emily had scarce time to
plume herself upon her victory, but, shot with the same
discharge, she, in a loud expiring sigh, in the closure of her eyes,
the stretch-out of her limbs, and a remission of her whole frame,
gave manifest signs that all was as it should be.
For my part, who had not with the calmest patience stood in
the water all this time, to view this warm action, I leaned
tenderly on my gallant, and at the close of it, seemed to ask him
with my eyes, what he thought of it; but he, more eager to
satisfy me by his actions than by words or looks, as we shoaled
the water towards the shore, showed me the staff of love so
intensely set up, that had not even charity, beginning at home in
this case, urged me to our mutual relief, it would have been
cruel indeed to have suffered the youth to burst with straining,
when the remedy was so obvious and so near at hand.
Accordingly we took a bench, whilst Emily and her spark, who
belonged it seems to the sea, stood at the side-board, drinking to
our good voyage: for, as the last observed, we were well under
weigh, with a fair wind up channel, and full-freighted; nor
indeed were we long before we finished our trip to Cythera, and
unloaded in the old haven; but, as the circumstances-did not
admit of much variation, I shall spare you the description.
At the same time, allow me to place you here an excuse I am
conscious of owing you, for having, perhaps, too much affected
the figurative style; though surely, it can pass nowhere more
allowable than in a subject which is so properly the province of
poetry, nay, is poetry itself, pregnant with every flower of
imagination and loving metaphors, even were not the natural
expressions, for respects of fashion and sound, necessarily
forbidden.
Resuming now my history, you may please to know, that what
with a competent number of repetitions, all in the same strain
(and, by the bye, we have a certain natural sense that those
repetitions are very much to the taste), what with a circle of
pleasures delicately varied, there was not a moment lost to joy
all the time we staid there, till late in the night we were re-
escorted home by our esquires, who delivered us safe to Mrs.
Cole, with generous thanks for our company.
This too was Emily's last adventure in our way: for scarce a
week after, she was, by an accident too trivial to detail to you
the particulars, found out by her parents, who were in good
circumstances, and who had been punished for their partiality to
their son, in the loss of him, occasioned by a circumstance of
their over indulgence to his appetite; upon which the so long
engrossed stream of fondness, running violently in favour of this
lost and inhumanly abandoned child whom if they had not
neglected enquiry about, they might long before have recovered,
they were now so over-joyed at the retrieval of her, that, I
presume, it made them much less strict in examining the bottom
of things: for they seemed very glad to take for granted, in the
lump, every thing that the grave and decent Mrs. Cole was
pleased to pass upon them; and soon afterwards sent her, from
the country, handsome acknowledgment.
But it was not so easy to replace to our community the loss of
so sweet a member of it: for, not to mention her beauty, she was
one of those mild, pliant characters, that if one does not entirely
esteem, one can scarce help loving, which is not such a bad
compensation neither. Owing all her weaknesses to good nature,
and an indolent facility that kept her too much at the mercy of
first impressions, she had just sense enough to know that she
wanted leading strings, and thought herself so much obliged to
any who would take the pains to think for her, and guide her,
that with a very little management, she was capable of being
made a most agreeable, nay a most virtuous wife: for vice, it is
probable, had never been her choice, or her fate, if it had not
been for occasion, or example, or had she not depended less
upon herself than upon her circumstances. This presumption her
conduct afterwards verified: for presently meeting with a match,
that was ready cut and dry for her, with a neighbour's son of her
own rank, and a young man of sense and order, who took as the
widow of one lost at sea (for so it seems one of her gallants,
whose name she had made free with, really was), she naturally
struck into all the duties of her domestic life, with as much
simplicity of affection, with as much constancy and regularity,
as if she had never swerved from a state of undebauched
innocence from her youth.
These desertions had, however, now so far thinned Mrs. Cole's
cluck that she was left with only me, like a hen with one
chicken; but though she was earnestly entreated and encouraged
to recruit her crops, her growing infirmities, and, above all, the
tortures, of a stubborn hip gout, which she found would yield to
no remedy, determined her to break up her business, and retire
with a decent pittance into the country, where I promised
myself, nothing so sure, as my going down to live with her, as
soon as I had seen a little more of life, and improved my small
matters into a competency that would create in me an
independence on the world: for I was now, thanks to Mrs. Cole,
wise enough to keep that essential in view.
Thus was I then to lose my faithful preceptress, as did the
philosophers of the town the white crow of her profession. For
besides that she never ransacked her customers, whose tastes
too she ever studiously consulted, she never racked her pupils
with unconscionable extortions, nor ever put their hard earnings,
as she called them, under the contribution of poundage. She was
a severe enemy to the seduction for innocence, and confined her
acquisitions solely to those unfortunate young women, who,
having lost it, were but the juster objects of compassion: among
these, indeed, she picked out such as suited her views and
taking them under her protection, rescued them from the danger
of the public sinks of ruin and misery, to place, or for them, well
or ill, in the manner you have seen. Having then settled her
affairs, she set out on her journey, after taking the most tender
leave of me, and at the end of some excellent instructions,
recommending me to myself, with an anxiety perfectly maternal.
In short, she affected me so much, that I was not presently
reconciled to myself for suffering her at any rate to go without
me; but fate had, it seems, otherwise disposed of me.
I had, on my separation from Mrs. Cole, taken a pleasant
convenient house at Marylebone, but easy to rent and manage
from its smallness, which I furnished neatly and modestly.
There, with a reserve of eight hundred pounds, the fruit of my
deference to Mrs. Cole's counsels, exclusive of clothes, some
jewels, and some plate, I saw myself in purse for a long time, to
wait without impatience for what the chapter of accidents might
produce in my favour.
Here, under the new character of a young gentlewoman whose
husband was gone to sea, I had marked me out such lines of life
and conduct, as leaving me a competent liberty to pursue my
views either out of pleasure or fortune, bounded me nevertheless
strictly within the rules of decency and discretion: a disposition,
in which you cannot escape observing a true pupil of Mrs. Cole.
I was scarce, however, well warm in my new abode, when
going out one morning pretty early to enjoy the freshness of it,
in the pleasing outlet of the fields, accompanied only by a maid,
whom I had newly hired, as we were carelessly walking among
the trees, we were alarmed with the noise of a violent coughing:
turning our heads towards which, we distinguished a plain well
dressed elderly gentleman, who, attacked with a sudden fit, was
so much overcome, as to be forced to give way to it and sit
down at the foot of a tree, where he seemed suffocating with the
severity of it, being perfectly black in the face; not less moved
than frightened with which, I flew on the instant to his relief,
and using the rote of practice I had observed on the like
occasion, I loosened his cravat and clapped him on the back; but
whether to any purpose, or whether the cough had had its
course, I know not, but the fit immediately went off; and now
recovered to his speech and legs, he returned me thanks with as
much emphasis as if I had saved his life. This naturally engaging
a conversation, he acquainted me where he lived, which was at a
considerable distance from where I met him, and where he had
strayed insensibly on the same intention of a morning walk.
He was, as I afterwards learned in the course of the intimacy
which this little accident gave birth to, an old bachelor, turned
of sixty, but of a fresh vigorous complexion, insomuch that he
scarce marked five and forty, having never racked his
constitution by permitting his desires to over-tax his ability.
As to his birth and conditions, his parents, honest and failed
mechanics, had, by the best traces he could get of them, left him
an infant orphan on the parish; so that it was from a charity-
school, that, by honesty and industry, he made his way into a
merchant's counting house, from whence, being sent to a house
in Cadiz, he there, by his talents and activity, acquired not only
a fortune, but an immense one, with which he returned to his
native country; where he could not, however, fish out so much
as one single relation out of the obscurity he was born in. Taking
then a taste for refinement, and pleased to enjoy life, like a
mistress in the dark, he flowed his days in all the ease of
opulence, without the least parade of it; and, rather studying the
concealment than the shew of a fortune, looked down on a world
he perfectly knew himself, to his wish, unknown and unmarked
by.
But, as I propose to devote a letter entirely to the pleasure of
retracing to you all the particulars of my acquaintance with this
ever, to me, memorable friend, I shall, in this, transiently touch
on no more than may serve, as mortar, to cement, or form the
connection of my history, and to obviate your surprise that one
of my blood and relish of life, should count a gallant of three
score such a catch.
Referring then to a more explicit narrative, to explain by what
progressions our acquaintance, certainly innocent at first,
insensibly changed nature, and run into unplatonic length, as
might well be expected from one of my condition of life, and
above all, from that principle of electricity that scarce ever fails
of producing fire when the sexes meet. I shall only here acquaint
you, that as age had not subdued his tenderness for our sex,
neither had it robbed him of the power of pleasing, since
whatever he wanted in the bewitching charms of youth, he
atoned for, or supplemented with the advantages of experience,
the sweetness of his manners, and above all, his flattering
address in touching the heart, by an application to the
understanding. From him it was I first learned, to any purpose,
and not without infinite pleasure, that I had such a portion of
me worth bestowing some regard on; from him I received my
first essential encouragement, and instructions how to put it in
that train of cultivation, which I have since pushed to the little
degree of improvement you see it at; he it was, who first taught
me to be sensible that the pleasures of the mind were superior to
those of the body; at the same time, that they were so far from
obnoxious to, or, incompatible with each other, that, besides the
sweetness in the variety and transition, the one served to exalt
and perfect the taste of the other, to a degree that the senses
alone can never arrive at.
Himself a rational pleasurist; as being much too wise to be
ashamed of the pleasures of humanity, loved me indeed, but
loved me with dignity; in a mean equally removed from the
sourness, of forwardness, by which age is unpleasingly
characterized, and from that childish silly dotage that so often
disgraces it, and which he himself used to turn into ridicule, and
compare to an old goat affecting the frisk of a young kid.
In short, every thing that is generally unamiable in his season
of life, was, in him, repaired by so many advantages, that he
existed a proof, manifest at least to me, that it is not out of the
power of age to please, if it lays out to please, and if, making
just allowance, those in that class do not forget, that if must cost
them more pains and attention, than what youth, the natural
spring-time of joy, stands in need of: as fruits out of season
require proportionally more skill and cultivation, to force them.
 With this gentleman, who took me home soon after our
acquaintance commenced, I lived near eight months in which
time, my constant complaisance and docility, my attention to
deserve his confidence and love, and a conduct, in general,
devoid of the least art and founded on my sincere regard and
esteem for him, won and attached him so firmly to me, that,
after having generously trusted me with a genteel, independent
settlement, proceeding to heap marks of affection on me, he
appointed me, by an authentic will, his sole heiress and
executrix: a disposition which he did not outlive two months,
being taken from me by a violent cold that he contracted, as he
unadvisedly ran to the window, on an alarm of fire at some
streets distant, and stood there naked-breasted, and exposed to
the fatal impressions of a damp night air.
After acquitting myself of the duty towards my deceased
benefactor, and paying him a tribute of un-feigned sorrow,
which a little time changed into a most tender, graceful memory
of him, which I shall ever retain, I grew somewhat comforted by
the prospect that now opened to me, if not of happiness, at least
of affluence and independence.
I saw myself then in the full bloom and pride of youth (for I
was not yet nineteen), actually at the head of so large a fortune,
as it would have been even the height of impudence in me to
have raised my wishes, much more my hopes to; and that this
unexpected elevation did not turn my head, I owed to the pains
my benefactor had taken to form and prepare me for it, as I
owed his opinion of my management of the vast possessions he
left me, to what he had observed of the prudential economy I
had learned under Mrs. Cole, the reserve of which he saw I had
made, was a proof and encouragement to him.
But, alas! how easily in the enjoyment of the greatest sweets
in life, in present possession, poisoned by the regret of an absent
one! But my regret was a mighty and just one, since it had my
only truly beloved Charles for its object.
Given him up I had, indeed, completely, having never once
heard from him since our separation; which, as I found
afterwards, had been my misfortune, and not his neglect, for he
wrote me several letters which had all miscarried; but forgotten
him I never had. And amidst all my personal infidelities, not one
had made a pin's point impression on a heart impenetrable to
the true love passion, but for him.
As soon, however, as I was mistress of this unexpected
fortune, I felt more than ever how dear he was to me, from its
insufficiency to make me happy, whilst he was not to share it
with me. My earliest care, consequently, was to endeavour at
getting some account of him; but all my researches produced me
no more light, than that his father had been dead for some time,
not so well as even with the world; and that Charles had reached
his port of destination in the South Seas, where, finding the
estate he was sent to recover, dwindled to a trifle, by the loss of
two ships in which the bulk of his uncle's fortune lay, he was
come away with the small remainder, and might, perhaps,
according to the best advice, in a few months return to England,
from whence he had, at the time of this my inquiry, been absent
two years and seven months. A little eternity in love!
You cannot conceive with what joy I embraced the hopes thus
given me of seeing the delight of my heart again. But, as the
term of months was assigned it, in order to divert and amuse my
impatience for his return, after settling my affairs with much
ease and security, I set out on a journey for Lancashire, with an
equipage suitable to my fortune, and with a design purely to
revisit my place of nativity, for which I could not help retaining
a great tenderness; and might naturally not be sorry to shew
myself there, to the advantage I was now in pass to do, after the
report Esther Davis had spread of my being spirited away to the
plantations; for on no other supposition could she account for
the suppression of myself to her, since her leaving me so
abruptly at the inn. Another favourite intention I had, to look
out for my relations, though I had none but distant ones, and
prove a benefactress to them. Then Mrs. Cole's place of
retirement lying in my way, was not amongst the least of the
pleasures I had proposed to myself in this expedition.
 I had taken nobody with me but a discreet decent woman, to
figure it as my companion, besides my servants; and was scarce
got into an inn, about twenty miles from London, where I was to
sup and pass the night, when such a storm of wind and rain
come on, as made me congratulate myself on having got under
shelter before it began.
This had continued a good half an hour, when bethinking me
of some directions to be given to the coachman, I sent for him,
not caring that his shoes should soil the very clean parlour, in
which the cloth was laid, I stept into the hall kitchen, where he
was, and where, whilst I was talking to him, I slantingly
observed two horsemen driven in by the weather, and both
wringing wet; one of whom was asking if they could not be
assisted with a change, while their clothes were dried. But,
heavens! who can express what I felt at the sound of a voice,
ever present to my heart, and that it now rebounded at! or when
pointing my eyes towards the person it came from, they
confirmed its information, in spite of so long an absence, and of
a dress one would have studied for a disguise: a horseman's
great coat, with a stamp-up cape, and his hat flapped... but what
could escape the alertness of a sense truly guided by love? A
transport then like mine was above all consideration, or schemes
of surprise; and I, that instant, with the rapidity of the emotions
that I felt the spur of, shot into his arms, crying out, as I threw
mine round his neck: "My life!... my soul!... my Charles!.." and
without further power of speech, swooned away, under the
pressing agitation of joy and surprise.
Recovered out of my entrancement, I found myself in my
charmer's arms, but in the parlour, surrounded by a crowd
which this event had gathered round us, and which immediately,
on a signal from the discreet landlady, who currently took him
for my husband, cleared the room, and desirably left us alone to
the raptures of this reunion; my joy at which had like to have
proved, at the expense of my life, its power superior to that of
grief at our fatal separation.
 The first object then, that my eyes opened on, was their
supreme idol, and my supreme wish, Charles, on one knee,
holding me fast by the hand and gazing on me with a transport
of fondness. Observing my recovery, he attempted to speak, and
give vent to his patience of hearing my voice again, to satisfy
him once more that it was I; but the mightiness and suddenness
Of the surprise continuing to stun him, choked his utterance: he
could only stammer out a few broken, half-formed, filtering
accents, which my ears greedily drinking in, spelt, and put
together, so as to make out their sense: "After so long!... so cruel
an absence!... my dearest Fanny!... can it?... can it be you?..."
stifling me at the time with kisses, that, stopping my opening
mouth, at once prevented the answer that he panted for, and
increased the delicious disorder in which all my senses were
rapturously lost. However, amidst this crowd of ideas, and all
blissful ones, there obtruded only one cruel doubt that poisoned
nearly all the transcendant happiness: and what was it, but my
dread of its being too excessive to be real? I trembled now with
my fear of its being no more than a dream, and of waking out of
it into the horrors of finding it one. Under this fond
apprehension, imagining I could not make too much of the
present prodigious joy, before it would vanish and leave me in
the desert again, nor verify its reality too strongly, I clung to
him, I clasped him, as if to hinder him from escaping me again:
"Where have you been?... how could you... could you leave
me?... Say you are still mine... that you still love me... and thus!
thus!" (kissing him as if I would consolidated lips with him) "I
forgive you... forgive my hard fortune in favour of this
restoration."
All these interjections breaking from me, in that wildness of
expression that justly passes for eloquence in love, drew from
him all the returns my fond heart could wish or require. Our
caresses, our questions, our answers, for some time observed no
order; all crossing, or interrupting one another in sweet
confusion, whilst we exchanged hearts at our eyes, and renewed
the ratifications of a love unabated by time or absence: not a
breath, not a motion, not a gesture on either side, but what was
strongly impressed with it. Our hands, locked in each other,
repeated the most passionate squeezes, so that their fiery thrill
went to the heart again.
Thus absorbed, and concentered in this unutterable delight, I
had not attended to the sweet author of it being thoroughly wet,
and in danger of catching cold; when, in good time, the
landlady, whom the appearance of my equipage (which, bye the
bye Charles knew nothing of) had gained me an interest in, for
me and mine interrupted us by bringing in a decent shift of linen
and clothes; which now, somewhat recovered into a calmer
composure by the coming in of a third person, I pressed him to
take the benefit of, with a tender con-cern and anxiety that
made me tremble for his health.
The landlady leaving us again, he proceeded to shift; in the act
of which, though he proceeded with all that modesty which
became these first solemner instants of our re-meeting, after so
long an absence, I could not refrain certain snatches of my eyes,
lured by the dazzling discoveries of his naked skin, that escaped
him as he changed his linen, and which I could not observe the
unfaded life and complexion of without emotions of tenderness
and joy, that had himself too purely for their object, to partake
of a loose or mis-timed desire.
He was soon dressed in these temporary clothes, which
neither fitted him, nor became the light my passion placed him
in, to me at least; yet, as they were on him, they looked
extremely well, in virtue of that magic charm which love put into
every thing that he-touched, or had relation to him: and where,
indeed, was that dress that a figure like his would not give grace
to? For now, as I eyed him more in detail, I could not but
observe the even favourable alteration which the time of his
absence had produced in his person.
There were still the requisite lineaments, still the same vivid
vermillion and bloom reigning in his face; but now the roses
were more fully blown; the tan of his travels, and a beard
somewhat more distinguishable, had, at the expense of no more
delicacy than what he could well spare, given it an air of
becoming manliness and maturity, that symmetrized nobly with
that air of distinction and empire with which nature had
stamped it, in a rare mixture with the sweetness of it; still
nothing had he lost of that smooth plumpness of flesh, which,
glowing with freshness, blooms florid to the eye, and delicious to
the touch; then his shoulders were grown more square, his shape
more formed, more portly, but still free and airy. In short, his
figure showed riper, greater, and perfecter to the experienced
eye, than in his tender youth; and now he was not much more
than two and twenty.
In this interval, however, I picked out of the broken, often
pleasingly interrupted account of himself, that he was, at that
instant, actually on his road to London, in not a very paramount
plight or condition, having been wrecked on the Irish coast for
which he had prematurely embarked, and lost the little all he
had brought with him from the South Seas: so that he had not
till after great shifts and hardships, in the company of his fellow-
traveller, the captain, got so far on his journey; that so it was
(having heard of his father's death and circumstances,) he had
now the world to begin again, on a new account: a situation,
which he assured me, in a vein of sincerity, that flowing from
his heart, penetrated mine, gave him to farther pain, than that
he had not his power to make me as happy as he could wish. My
fortune, you will please to observe, I had not entered upon any
overture of, reserving, to feast myself with the surprise of it to
him, in calmer instants. And, as to my dress, it could give him
no idea of the truth, not only as it was mourning, but likewise in
a style of plainness and simplicity that I had ever kept to with
studied art. He pressed me indeed tenderly to satisfy his ardent
curiosity, both with regard to my past and present state of life,
since his being torn away from me: but I found means to elude
his questions, by answers that shewing his satisfaction at no
great distance, won upon him to waive his impatience, in favour
of the thorough confidence he had in my not delaying it, but for
respect I should in good time acquaint him with.
Charles, however, thus returned to my longing arms, tender,
faithful, and in health, was already a blessing too mighty for my
conception: but Charles in distress!... Charles reduced, and
broken down to his naked personal merit, was such a
circumstance, in favour of the sentiments I had for him, as
exceeded my utmost desire; and accordingly I seemed so visibly
charmed, so out of time and measure pleased at his mention of
his ruined fortune, that he could account for it no way, but that
the joy of seeing him again had swallowed up every other sense
of concern.
In the mean time, my woman had taken, all possible care of
Charles's travelling companion; and as supper was coming in, he
was introduced to me, when I received him as became my regard
for all of Charles's acquaintance or friends.
We four then supped together, in the style of joy,
congratulation, and pleasing disorder that you may guess. For
my part, though all these agitations had left me not the least
stomach, but for that uncloying feast, the sight of my adored
youth, I endeavoured to force it, by way of example for him,
who I conjectured must want such a recruit after riding; and,
indeed, he; ate like a traveller, but gazed at, and addressed me
all the time like a lover.
After the cloth was taken away, and the hour of repose came
on, Charles and I were, without further ceremony, in quality of
man and wife, shown up together to a very handsome
apartment, and, all in course, the bed, they said, the best in the
inn.
And here, Decency, forgive me! if once more I violate thy laws
and keeping the curtains undrawn, sacrifice thee for the last
time to that confidence, without reserve, with which I engaged
to recount to you the most striking circumstances of my youthful
disorders.
As soon, then, as we were in the room together, left to
ourselves, the sight of the bed starving the remembrance of our
first joys, and the thought of my being instantly to share it with
the dear possessor of my virgin heart, moved me so strongly,
that it was well I leaned upon him, or I must have fainted again
under the overpowering sweet alarm. Charles saw into my
confusion, and forgot his own, that was scarce less, to apply
himself to the removal of mine.
But now the true refining passion had regained throughout
possession of me, with all its train of symptoms: a sweet
sensibility, a tender timidity, love-sick yearnings tempered with
diffidence and modesty, all held me in a subjection of soul,
incomparably dearer to me than the liberty of heart which I had
been long, too long! the mistress of, in the course of those
grosser gallantries, the consciousness of which now made me
sigh with a virtuous confusion and regret. No real virgin, in
short, in view of the nuptial bed, could give more bashful
blushes to unblemished innocence, than I did to a sense of guilt;
and indeed I loved Charles too truly not to feel severely that I
did not deserve him.
As I kept hesitating and disconcerted under this soft
distraction, Charles, with a fond impatience, took the pains to
undress me; and all I can remember amidst the nutter and
discomposure of my senses, was, some flattering exclamation of
joy and admiration, more specially at the feel of my breasts, now
set at liberty from my stays, and which panting and rising in
tumultous throbs, swelled upon his dear touch, and gave it the
welcome pleasure of finding them well formed, and un-failed in
firmness.
I was soon laid in bed, and scarce languished an instant for
the darling partner of it, before he was undressed and got
between the sheets, with his arms clasped round me, giving and
taking, with gust inexpressible, a kiss of welcome, that my heart
rising to my lips stamped with its warmest impression,
concurring to my bliss, with that delicate and voluptuous
emotion which Charles alone had the secret to excite, and which
constitutes the very life, the essence of pleasure.
Mean while, two candles lighted on a side-table near us, and a
joyous wood fire, threw a light into the bed, that took from one
sense, of great importance to our joys, all pretext for
complaining of its being shut out of its share of them; and,
indeed, the sight of my idolized youth was alone, from the
ardour with which I had wished for it, without other
circumstance, a pleasure to die of.
But as action was now a necessity to desires so much on edge
as ours, Charles, after a very short prelusive dalliance, lifting up
my linen and his own, laid the broad treasures of his manly
chest close to my bosom, both beating with the tenderest alarms:
when now, the sense of his glowing body, in naked touch with
mine, took all power over my thoughts out of my own disposal,
and delivered up every faculty of the soul to the sensiblest of
joys, that affecting me infinitely more with my distinction of the
person, than of the sex, now brought my heart deliriously into
play: my heart, which, eternally constant to Charles, had never
taken any part in my original sacrifices to the calls of
constitution, complaisance, or interest. But ah! what became of
me, when as the powers of solid pleasure thickened upon me, I
could not help feeling the stiff stake that had been adorned with
the trophies of my despoiled virginity, bearing hard and
inflexible against one of my thighs, which I had not yet opened,
from a true principle of modesty, revived by a passion too
sincere to suffer any aiming at the false merit of difficulty, or my
putting on an impertinent mock coyness.
I have, I believe, somewhere before remarked, that feel of that
favourite piece of manhood has, in the very nature of it,
something inimitably pathetic. Nothing can be dearer to the
touch, nor can affect it with a more delirious sensation. Think
then! as a love thinks, what must be the consummate transport
of that quickest of our senses, in their central seat too! when,
after so long a deprival, it felt itself re-inflamed under the
pressure of that peculiar sceptre-member, which commands us
all: but especially my darling, elect from the face of the whole
earth. And now, at its mightiest point of stiffness, it felt to me
something so subduing so active, so solid and agreeable, that I
know not what name to give its singular impression: but the
sentiment of consciousness of its belonging to my supremely
beloved youth, gave me so pleasing an agitation, and worked so
strongly on my soul, that it sent all its sensitive spirits to that
organ of bliss in me, dedicated to its reception. There,
concentering to a point, like rays in a burning glass, they
glowed, they burnt with the intensest heat; the springs of
pleasure were, in short, wound up to such a pitch, I panted now
with so exquisitely keen an appetite for the eminent enjoyment,
that I was even sick with desire, and unequal to support the
combination of two distinct ideas, that delightfully distracted
me: for all the thought I was capable of, was that I was now in
touch, at once, with the instrument of pleasure, and the great
seal of love. Ideas that, mingling streams, poured such an ocean
of intoxicating bliss on a weak vessel, all too narrow to contain
it, that I lay overwhelmed, absorbed, lost in an abyss of joy, and
dying of nothing but immoderate delight.
Charles then roused me somewhat out of this extatic
distraction, with a complaint softly murmured, amidst a crowd
of kisses, at the position, not so favourable to his desires, in
which I received his urgent insistance for admission, where that
insistance was alone so engrossing a pleasure, that it made me
inconsistently suffer a much dearer one to be kept out; but how
sweet to correct such a mistake! My thighs, now obedient to the
intimations of love and nature, gladly disclose, and with a ready
submission, resign up the soft gateway to the entrance of
pleasure: I see, I feel the delicious velvet tip!... he enters me
might and main, with... oh! my pen drops from here in the
extasy now present to my faithful memory! Description too
deserts me, and delivers over a task, above its strength of wing,
to the imagination: but it must be an imagination exalted by
such a flame as mine that can do justice to that sweetest,
noblest of all sensations, that hailed and accompanied the stiff
insinuation all the way up, till it was at the end of its
penetration, sending up, through my eyes, the sparks of the
love-fire that ran all over me and blazed in every vein and every
pore of me; a system incarnate of joy all over.
I had now totally taken in love's true arrow from the point up
to the feather, in that part, where making no new wound, the
lips or the original one of nature, which had owed its first
breathing to this dear instrument, clung, as if sensible of
gratitude, in eager suction round it, whilst all its inwards
embraced it tenderly, with a warmth of gust, a compressive
energy, that gave it, in its way, the heartiest welcome in nature;
every fibre there gathering tight round it, and straining
ambitiously to come in for its share of the blissful touch.
As we were giving them a few moments pause to the the
delectations of the senses, in dwelling with the highest relish on
this intimatest point of re-union, and chewing the cud of
enjoyment, the impatience natural to the pleasure soon drove us
into action. Then began the driving tumult on his side, and the
responsive heaves on mine, which kept me up to him; whilst, as
our joys grew too great for utterance, the organs of our voices,
voluptuously intermixing, became organs of the touch... how
delicious!... how poignantly luscious!... And now! now I felt, to
the heart of me! I felt the prodigious keen edge, with which love,
presiding over this act, points the pleasure: love! that may be
styled the Attic salt of enjoyment; and indeed, without it, the
joy, great as it is, is still a vulgar one, whether in a king or a
beggar; for it is, undoubtedly, love alone that refines, ennobles,
and exalts it.
Thus, happy, then, by the heart, happy by the senses, it was
beyond all power, even of thought, to form the conception of a
greater delight than what I now am consummating the fruition
of.
Charles, whose whole frame was convulsed with the agitation
of his rapture, whilst the tenderest fires trembled in his eyes, all
assured me of a perfect concord of joy, penetrated me so
profoundly, touched me so vitally, took me so much out of my
own possession, whilst he seemed himself so much in mine, that
in a delicious enthusiasm, I imagined such a transfusion of heart
and spirit, as that coalescing, and making one body and soul
with him, I was he, and he me.
But all this pleasure tending, like life from its first instants,
towards its own dissolution, lived too fast not to bring on upon
the spur its delicious moment of mortality; for presently the
approach of the tender agony discovered itself by its usual
signals, that were quickly followed by my dear lover's emanation
of himself, that spun out, and shot, feelingly indeed! up the
ravished indraught: where the sweetly soothing balmy titillation
opened all the juices of joy on my side, which extatic-ally in flow
helped to allay the prurient glow, and drowned our pleasure for
a while. Soon, however, to be on float again! for Charles, true to
nature's laws, in one breath, expiring and ejaculating, languished
not long in the dissolving trance, but recovering spirit again,
soon gave me to feel that the true mettle spring! of his
instrument of pleasure, were, by love, and perhaps, by a long
vacation, wound up too high to be let down by a single
explosion: his stiffnesss till stood my friend. Resuming then the
action afresh, without dislodging, or giving me the trouble of
parting from my sweet tenant, we played over again the same
opera, with the same harmony and concert: our ardours, like our
love, knew no remission; and all the tide serving my lover, lavish
of his stores, and pleasure-milked, he over-flowed me once more
from the fulness of his oval reservoirs of the genial emulsion:
whilst, on my side, a convulsive grasp, in the instant of my
giving down the liquid contribution, rendered me sweetly
subservient at once to the increase of joy, and to its effusions:
moving me so, as to make me exert all those springs of the
compressive exsuction, with which the sensitive mechanism of
that part thirstily draws and drains the nipple of Love; with
much such an instinctive eagerness and attachment, as to
compare great with less, kind nature engages infants at the
breasts, by the pleasure they find in the motion of their little
mouths and cheeks, to extract the milky stream prepared for
their nourishment.
But still there was no end of his vigour: this double discharge
had so far from extinguished his desires, for that time, that it
had not even calmed them; and at his age, desires are power. He
was proceeding then amazingly to push it to a third triumph,
still without uncasing, if a tenderness, natural to true love, had
not inspired me with self-denial enough to spare, and not over-
strain him: and accordingly, entreating him to give himself and
me quarter, I obtained, at length, a short suspension of arms,
but not before he had exult-ingly satisfied me that he gave out
standing.
The remainder of the night, with what we borrowed upon the
day, we employed with unwearied fervour in celebrating thus
the festival of our remeeting; and got up pretty late in the
morning, gay, brisk and alert, though rest had been a stranger to
us: but the pleasures of love had been to us, what the joy of
victory is to an army: repose, refreshment, every thing.
The journey into the country being now entirely out of the
question, and orders having been given overnight for turning the
horses' heads towards London, we left the inn as soon as we had
breakfasted, not without a liberal distribution of the tokens of
my grateful sense of the happiness I had met with in it.
Charles and I were in my coach; the captain and my
companion in a chaise hired purposely for them, to leave us the
conveniency of a tete a tete.
Here, on the road, as the tumult of my senses was tolerably
composed, I had command enough of head to break properly to
his the course of life that the consequences of my separation
from him had driven me into: which, at the same time that he
tenderly deplored with me, he was the less shocked at; as, on
reflecting how he had left me circumstances, he could not be
entirely unprepared for it.
But when I opened the state of my fortune to him, and with
that sincerity which, from me to him, was so much a nature in
me, I beged of him his acceptance of it, on his own terms. I
should appear to you perhaps too partial to my passion, were I
to attempt the doing his delicacy justice, I shall content myself
then with assuring you, that after his flatly refusing the
unreserved, unconditional donation that I long persecuted him in
vain to accept, it was at length, in obedience to his serious
commands (for I stood out unaffectedly, till he exerted the
sovereign authority which love had given him over me), that I
yielded my consent to waive the remonstrance I did not fail of
making strongly to him, against his degrading himself, and
incurring the reflection, however unjust, of having, for respects
of fortune, bartered his honour for infamy and prostitution, in
making one his wife, who thought herself too much honoured in
being but his mistress.
The plea of love then over-ruling all objections, for him, which
he could not but read the sincerity of in a heart ever open to
him, obliged me to receive his hand, by which means I was in
pass, among other innumerable blessings, to bestow a legal
parentage on those fine children you have seen by this happiest
of matches.
Thus, at length, I got snug into port, where, in the bosom of
virtue, I gathered the only uncorrupt sweets: where, looking
back on the course of vice I had run, and comparing its
infamous blandishments with the infinitely superior joys of
innocence, I could not help pitying, even in point of taste, those
who, immersed in gross sensuality, are insensible to the so
delicate charms of VIRTUE, than which even PLEASURE has not
a greater friend, nor VICE a greater enemy. Thus temperance
makes men lords over those pleasures that intemperance
enslaves them to: the one, parent of health, vigour fertility
cheerfulness, and every other desirable good of life; the other, of
diseases, debility, barrenness, self-loathing, with only every evil
incident to human nature.
You laugh, perhaps, at this tail-piece of morality, extracted
from me by the force of truth, resulting from compared
experiences: you think it, no doubt, out of character; possibly
too you may look on it as the paultry finesse of one who seeks to
mask a devotee to vice under a rag of a veil, impudently
smuggled from the shrine of Virtue: just as if one was to fancy
one's self completely disguised at a masquerade, with no other
change of dress than turning one's shoes into slippers; or, as if a
writer should think to shield a treasonable libel, by concluding it
with a formal prayer for the King. But, independent of my
flattering myself that you have a juster opinion of my sense and
sincerity, give me leave to represent to you, that such a
supposition is even more injurious to Virtue than to me: since,
consistently with candour and good nature, it san have no
foundation but in the falsest of fears, that its pleasures cannot
stand in comparison with those of Vice; but let truth dare to
hold it up in its most alluring light: then mark, how spurious,
how low of taste, how comparatively inferior its joys are to those
which Virtue gives sanction to, and whose sentiments are not
above making even a sauce for the senses, but a sauce of the
highest relish; whilst Vices are the harpies that infect and foul
the feast. The paths of Vice are sometimes strewed with roses,
but then they are for ever infamous for many a thorn, for many
a cankerworm: those of Virtue are strewed with roses purely,
and those eternally unfading ones.
If you do me then justice, you will esteem me perfectly
consistent in the incense I burn to Virtue. If I have painted Vice
in all its gayest colours, if I have decked it with flowers, it has
been solely in order to make the worthier, the solemner sacrifice
of it to Virtue.
You know Mr. C*** O***, you know his estate, his worth, and
good sense: can you, will you pronounce it ill meant, at least of
him, when anxious for his son's morals, with a view to form him
to virtue, and inspire him with a fixed, a rational contempt for
vice, he condescended to be his master of the ceremonies, and
led him by the hand through the most noted bawdy-houses in
town, where he took care he should be familiarized with all
those scenes of debauchery, so fit to nauseate a good taste? The
experiment, you will cry, is dangerous. True, on a fool: but are
fools worth so much attention.
I shall see you soon, and in the mean time think candidly of
me, and believe me ever,
MADAM, Yours, etc., etc., etc. X X X

THE END
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